


let our hearts be the only sound

by comelayinmybed, LuckyWantsToKnow



Series: no limit to your love [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Asshole!Nicole, Cheese Board Pizza Collective is vegetarian and delicious, F/F, Gun!Porn Waverly is a real thing, Things go BOOM, Who knew a pen sleeve could be sexy, lucky is the only one using these tags, obligatory lesbian subaru, there are no moose in the Sierra Nevadas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-06-14 13:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 68,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15389487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comelayinmybed/pseuds/comelayinmybed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyWantsToKnow/pseuds/LuckyWantsToKnow
Summary: “Why did you drive to the Academy every day for ten years?”“I didn’t drive to the Academy per se, but I did drive to the main precinct beside it after I graduated. I was an officer, and then an EOD tech and sometimes more of a detonator than a disposer…which is why…anyways,” she veered, disengaging her personal history and moving back into Driver mode. “We’re here.”





	1. should be the last night we're apart

Nicole pulled into her garage and shut off the engine of her 2016 Twilight Blue Subaru Outback, the dance remix of Troye Sivan’s “My My My” fading out. She was exhausted and her head was throbbing. The songs were catchy until the synth beats intermingled with the cacophony of college girls singing loudly along at three in the morning. For a Sunday night, she had been unexpectedly busy. She mentally tallied the number of pickups she’d taken over the shift, thinking she was in pretty good shape. But pulling out her phone to do some quick calculations, she realized she was coming up short. The weekend was over and now she was going to have to drive twice as much to make up for the dearth of drunk kids needing an Uber back to their residence.

“Shit…shitshitshitshit,” she hissed, rubbing her temples and closing her eyes, when the app dinged at her loudly. “Oh great, and I forgot to turn You off,” she chastised.

Nicole looked at the address just as a reminder popped up on her screen that a payment was due in three days on her…well, everything. Things that she once took for granted, her nice house and her nice car, seemed more like a curse now, and she wished the market was better so she could sell. Her thoughts were honestly a clusterfuck over it all.

“Focus…” she soothed herself. At this early hour the pickup must be a “ride of shame” or an early morning out-of-towner, easily located half a block away with less than a fifteen minute trip across town. She growled in frustration as she cranked the car and punched in her robo-response to the requester: her name, the car’s make and license number, with an ETA of three minutes.

* * *

  
Waverly Earp stood outside her condo and shuffled two heavy bags on each arm so that they didn’t unbalance her small frame in the few minutes she’d been anticipating the Uber pickup. She looked expectantly at the circular drive around her complex and just as she was about to topple over with the photographic evidence log she kept pushing back into the canvas, the blue Subaru appeared and slowed to a stop in front of her. She gathered herself and her heavy accoutrement, and pulled for the door, never looking at the driver.

“You’ve got a lot to handle there. Need some help?”

“I do this every day. I think I’ve got it,” she huffed as she yanked the last bag into the seat beside her and sighed.

“Suit yourself,” was the only reply from Nicole as she pulled slowly away from the curb.

“If you take Montauk to Liberty, you miss the traffic on Lincoln.”

Nicole looked down again; she hadn’t actually paid attention to the destination, just that it was a pretty quick ride. She scowled and immediately regretted her decision to take this fare. She pulled onto Ferry Street, heading towards Lincoln as if she’d never heard her passenger.

“Excuse me…miss…”

“Nicole.”

“Nicole. I’m not sure you heard me, but taking Montauk to Liberty is faster than this route.”

“I know where I’m going, no worries,” responded Nicole, flat and despondent.

Waverly opened and closed her mouth no less than three times before they came to a stop sign. Nicole placed the car in park, knowing the roads were pretty barren before dawn, and turned slowly in her seat, narrowing her eyes at a very frustrated Waverly.

“Go ahead.”

Waverly shifted and avoided Nicole’s direct stare. “Go ahead and what?”

“Tell me again how I should have gone down Montauk to Liberty. You might die if you don’t.”

“It’s just the fastest route I’ve found and I hate to waste time. The reason I leave so early is that I want to make the most of the ride and the time before classes start.”

“You teach at the Academy?”

“Yes, I teach Arrest Control and Victimology. Right now, I’m also conducting a course on Unusual Occurrences.”

Nicole whistled low and steady. “That’s pretty impressive. How much preparation does it take to tell the recruits to set a wide perimeter and call EOD? Not like they’ll do a better job when they get there.”

Nicole let the last sentence ebb out of her subconscious, staring past Waverly and the present moment into some hazy memory. She heard a loud “humph” from the back seat and refocused, the golden warmth returning to her eyes.

Seeing Nicole’s attention return to their present quandary, Waverly rolled her eyes in the face of the uncalled for insult that Nicole had just lobbed at her. She took short breaths, crossing her arms tight across her chest, but pressed her lips together in order to restrain herself from returning an equally asinine retort. Instead, she focused on the real objective: getting to work. Nicole took the hint. She smirked and turned back around in the driver’s seat, hand going to the gear shift.

“Alright…we’ll do it your way,” Nicole acquiesced, shifting into drive and letting the car roll for a moment as she admitted to herself that she had gone off-book. There was nothing Nicole could say to erase that sarcastic jab. Pressing her foot to the brake, she looked in the rearview mirror, willing her passenger to look back somehow. It didn’t happen, and she couldn’t keep stalling. The car inched forward and Nicole steered it into a right turn so that she could redirect their course. Waverly didn’t move for a good minute but then realized the motion, the hum of the motor through the floor breaking through her inertia.

“Wait,” she spat suddenly, reaching towards Nicole’s seat, her hand pressing into the cushion, so close to the driver that she could feel the heat radiating from her shoulders. “You’re sure you know a faster route?”

Nicole didn’t turn around this time. She felt the tug of the upholstery in Waverly’s hands and leaned towards it subconsciously.

“I made this trip every day for almost ten years. Trust me?”

“I have no reason to trust you; I just met you,” Waverly whispered. She looked at the denim of Nicole’s shirt, her fingertip making the slightest wisp of contact, certain the redhead would never feel it. She wasn’t even sure why she needed to touch her-- if only for a millisecond, but Nicole shifted and Waverly yanked her hand away from the touch and the seat as if it were suddenly on fire. She pushed her back deep into the bolster and pulled the agenda from her bag, opening it upside down. “No matter, act like you know what you’re doing, Waverly…” she muttered to herself.

“Hey! If you’re talking to me, speak up? I can’t hear so well sometimes.”

The blush rose immediately across Waverly’s cheeks, but she planned to play this part to the end. “Oh…no, I was…never mind…I suppose we can try your way this time, seeing as how we’ve lost any scant difference arguing over it anyway.”

Nicole shook her head and just turned around, proceeding on her original route of choice. The club beats droned low on the same playlist Nicole had been using all night. She spent the next ten minutes of the ride sparing as many glances into the rearview mirror as possible at this woman who was defiant, and obviously smart, and kind of funny. She chuckled to herself when she saw the quick flip of the planner to right it for actual reading. She relished the seriousness of the study that lasted a few minutes before it was snapped shut and deposited back in the main attache beside Waverly. She turned her eyes back towards the road in the same instance Waverly finally looked at her in the mirror. The next time she dared glance back, Waverly was looking out the window as the sun peeked over the horizon. Nicole could literally see day break across the defined cheekbones, shining like a halo around the braids so meticulously gathered from the brunette’s face. She was a little in awe and now realized what an ass she had been during their first communication. She didn’t care about the five-star rating she’d likely lost. She cared about the insult she’d directed at this incredibly qualified woman who was using Uber to give her more time to be a better instructor. There was nothing Nicole could say to erase that initial error, but she wanted to try.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t doing a great job teaching. I admire someone who spends a lot of time preparing for all the different things that can go wrong. I actually understand a lot about that, so I hope you don’t take my ramblings personally.”

Waverly didn’t move. She certainly didn’t look into the mirror to verify she had heard anything of the sort of apology Nicole was attempting to make. In fact, Nicole was sure she hadn’t heard her at all until she politely replied.

“Why did you drive to the Academy every day for ten years?”

“I didn’t drive to the Academy per se, but I did drive to the main precinct beside it after I graduated. I was an officer, and then an EOD tech and sometimes more of a detonator than a disposer…which is why…anyways,” she veered, disengaging her personal history and moving back into Driver mode. “We’re here.”

“How did you...? I somehow missed the shortcut,” Waverly questioned, disappointed in herself. She didn’t consider that she didn’t see the shortcut because she couldn’t always read the signs until she was on top of them, or that a quick turn was something her brain skipped when it couldn’t see it happen. She was actually angry at herself yet again for something being so stupidly out of her control.

“Do you need help with the bags this time?” was the only answer Nicole volunteered, warm and confident, almost bounding from the car as she circled and opened the passenger door for Waverly.

“I’ve got them, thank you,” she replied, attempting to assemble them on both arms, but Nicole pulled them from her grasp and shouldered both as Waverly angled down from the rugged vehicle.

When her footing was steady, Waverly reached graciously for the bags and her eyes widened as she looked up to see Nicole fully…to really see her, Waverly told herself later. Nicole was tall enough to shadow Waverly from the early morning sun, the glow emanating through her red curls, her eyes filled with another kind of warmth, something that said she had a good heart and a pure intention was what Waverly decided as she smiled down, a dimple popping from Nicole’s cheek.

“Maybe someday I’ll get lucky and you’ll be my driver again and you can give me the cheat code for this fast trip across town?” She flirted lightly.

“Maybe,” Nicole shrugged, “I’m actually working nights and you happen to be my last patron for this shift. Somehow 0500 snuck up on me today, but for good reason, it seems.”

There was the smile again, the dimple, and Waverly couldn’t help but return it this time. Nicole handed off the bags and closed the door to the Subaru.

“Thank you again for your understanding. I hope you have a great day, Corporal!”

Nicole backed away from Waverly and slowly climbed into the Subaru. Exhaustion was starting to fall on her and sleep would come as soon as she hit the bed. But she fastened her seatbelt and fumbled with her cell, sitting for a moment, so that she could make sure Waverly got inside. It was barely light outside, she told herself, and it was just the responsible thing to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Season Four Renewal!!! Highest gratitude to Lucky without whom this would've never happened. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this story, including countless civil service professionals who have provided invaluable information towards some level of accuracy. Yes, we're going to play a little fast and loose with Uber and how it works, but for the good of the story, so that's what counts, right? And obviously, thank YOU for reading. :)
> 
> On twitter at @comelayinmybed & @LuckyWantsTo also!


	2. don't you know you're alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She awoke with a start so strong she physically pushed herself to almost sitting up in the hospital bed, a hoarse moan escaping from her. Wynonna was immediately on her feet, her hands going to Waverly’s shoulders.
> 
> “It’s okay, babygirl. You’re okay. Just lay back down and I’ll get a nurse,” Wynonna insisted, but didn’t move, her hands steadying Waverly for a few moments.
> 
> “Did we get him?” was all Waverly asked, her body unrelenting for the moment. 
> 
> “We got him. I pulled the trigger myself.”

As Waverly walked into the main entrance of the Academy, her feet felt like they were floating a bit above the ground. She giddily recalled Uber Nicole’s departing smile. She berated herself slightly for being attracted to someone who obviously was oblivious, but that smile…was something special.

“Good morning, Corporal Earp! How do you manage to look so smokin’ hot before 6am on a Monday?” bellowed Champ from behind the curved administrative desk at the Academy entrance.  Waverly’s daydream came to a screeching halt as she rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. 

“Morning, Champ. I’m honestly surprised you’re here so early,” Waverly replied coolly. She wasn’t vaguely interested in the actual reason he offered, but it was easier to get Champ to talk about himself than respond to his entirely inappropriate greeting. By the time he was two sentences in, she had already distracted herself with his shiny gold name plate.

_“Is ‘Champ’ his first or last name? If it’s his first name, why is it on his name tag? If it’s his last name, what’s his first name??”_

“…So you know, just doing my duty as an officer…” pulled Waverly back in because she knew the one sure thing about Champ was that he was definitely not an officer.

“Careful. You don’t want to be accused of impersonating a police officer,” she smiled tightly, turning on her heel and heading towards the duty office.

By the time she navigated the corridor,  touching each of the cubicle entrances until she counted to eight, and dropped the bags onto her desk, Uber Nicole had long deserted her mind. She flipped on the computer and pulled out the cumbersome evidence log, placing it in the center of her workspace, the desk lamp flipped on directly above as she began meticulous notes for her Victimology class that started in two hours.  It was imperative that she convey to the recruits the importance of logging minute details to give victims the voice they needed. Waverly had been one of those victims; she felt gratified that her experiences would help future generations to empower victims rather than dissuade reporting, all the way from crime to conviction.

_She awoke with a start so strong she physically pushed herself to almost sitting up in the hospital bed, a hoarse moan escaping from her. Wynonna was immediately on her feet, her hands going to Waverly’s shoulders._

_“It’s okay, babygirl. You’re okay. Just lay back down and I’ll get a nurse,” Wynonna insisted, but didn’t move, her hands steadying Waverly for a few moments._

_“Did we get him?” was all Waverly asked, her body unrelenting for the moment._

_“We got him. I pulled the trigger myself.”_

_“Pulled the trigger? Wynonna, you know I wanted to take him alive. That’s what all our planning has been for weeks. I tracked him for over two years! How could you just_ **_shoot_ ** _him?”_

  _Wynonna didn’t respond directly, just shaking her head refusing to make eye contact. She moved her hands from Waverly’s shoulders, to slide up and down her arms, soothing her without speaking. Waverly realized in that moment she had no idea what had happened after she had crept around the corner into the alleyway, but based on her surroundings, it couldn’t be good._

_“What happened? Why didn’t you take him alive?”_

_“It was…it was you or Jack, babygirl, and there was a clear choice. Now lay back down?”_

_Suddenly nausea swept through her and a pounding reverberated from the back of her head so overwhelming that she retched. Wynonna grasped her arms as she breathed through it and then gently pushed her back down against the bed._

_“See, head injuries: bad. I’m getting the doctor.”_

* * *

Waverly must have worked for a good hour before another sound was heard in the duty office, a jangling of keys and Chrissy Nedley poked her head around the entry to Waverly’s desk area.

“Hi Chrissy,” Waverly said distractedly.

Chrissy moved the rest of the way into the cubicle and sat on the edge of Waverly’s desk. “I’m always so afraid I’m going to scare you to death when there’s no one else here so early…”

“I heard the Lieutenant grumbling when you insisted on opening the office door for him. He’s still using the crutches?” Waverly asked as she pulled her attention away from the evidence log, finally turning her head, a smile blossoming to greet Chrissy.

“The orthopedist says three more weeks. He’s such a sourpuss, like... just let people HELP YOU, old man! Not that you’d know anything about that, Waverly Earp.”

“I let people help me all the time! I once even asked for help, if you’ll recall.”

_Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling and Waverly kept pushing them into her parka, eyes focused only on the wet blacktop at her feet, legs weak and wobbly. She occasionally felt the chill of the winter wind whipping against her, but it only masked the tears as chill-induced and not the byproduct of the defeat she was succumbing to. Just ten minutes prior she had been working along on tow inventory like she had done seamlessly a hundred times before. Her attention focused on cataloging, she had wrapped it up and was verifying the final VIN when the suspect appeared out of nowhere._

_“It wasn’t out of nowhere. You knew he had been seen in the vicinity earlier in the day before the team took down the location,” she berated herself._

_The officers had assumed he ran when they’d closed in on the property, and an extensive search of the perimeter located nothing, but suddenly he was there, his foot in the bend of her knee, his hand on her wrist, pushing her against the car with the extra hundred plus pounds he had on Waverly. The thoughts that ran through her mind, out there seemingly alone. “He’s going to kill me. He’s going to take my gun, the gun I’m supposed to use to protect myself with, and shoot me dead. God I hope he shoots me somewhere that I bleed out fast…Fuck. How did I not see him?” a hoarse laugh pushed from her throat despite the dire circumstance, “Well, that pretty much explains it all.”_

_In the hours after the search and seizure at the abandoned drug den, her comfort level had won over her finely-tuned hearing and her constant surface scans, her head always on a swivel to the fullest radius ensuring she was safe.  She had finally dropped her guard and was at the last car of the evening; the remainder of the team in the back of the gutted bungalow pulling out the cooking equipment, tossing things outside that clanked and banged to the point she had turned off her pristine sense. With it went her only defense other than what her eyes could see directly in front of her. She was fucked, she decided, and acquiesced to his demands to locate the keys so that he could make his escape. As he leaned away from Waverly, the sound of a shotgun racking echoed through the foggy night._

_“Boy, you better put your hands on top of that vehicle if you do not want a slug between your eyes,” Agent Holliday commanded from the front porch._

_The suspect only weighed his options for a brief moment before palming the roof of the Camaro with both hands, releasing Waverly from his sweaty grip so quickly she lost her balance and tipped back into the hood._

_Doc never took his aim from Stevie, but addressed Waverly. “You okay, Agent Earp? It seems this bastard should have kept running when he had the opportunity instead of coming back to deal with the likes of you.”_  

_“I’m fine, Agent Holliday, just getting my feet under me again,” Waverly replied and then promptly shut her mouth tightly, letting John Henry cuff the suspect and cart him off to a patrol car. Finally all the rage within her, fighting to get back just this simple ability of completing tasks without incident, burned up and out with the tears now streaming down her face. She pulled her phone from her pocket, dialing a number and turning away from the fray of arrest activity._

_“Hi Chrissy…no, no I’m okay…Ya know, I’m not actually. I need…Didn’t you say you know someone who could, I don’t know, help me? Yeah. I’m about to pull myself out of the field and I’m pretty sure it’s going to destroy me….”_

_Chrissy promised to call her college roommate, a therapist who specialized in PTSD now at Alta Bates, and get Waverly in as a special favor first thing the following morning. “Waves, you’ve worked so hard to get back in the field. Are you sure you’re making the right decision now?”_

_“I almost got myself killed for no reason, Chrissy. No reason! If John Henry hadn’t come out when he did, there’s no telling how many on the team could’ve been hurt tonight. I can’t have any more blood on my hands than my own. I have to do this, I have to quit the team and I can’t do it alone.”_

Chrissy’s mood tilted to slightly stoic and sad as she put her hand on Waverly’s shoulder, “I’m glad you did. I can’t imagine you not being here, Waves.”

“Thank god for Uber!” Waverly joked, breaking the somber moment, her smile turning into a smirk. “Are we doing lunch today?”

“Yep, around noon if that’s cool?”

 “Absolutely. Speaking of Uber, I’ll have to tell you about my ride this morning.” 

“Was he a dick? Did he treat you like you were too frail to drive? Did the car smell like olive loaf again??”

“ _She_ …started out as a bit of an asshole, but I’m pretty sure it was because I immediately questioned _her_ abilities. Have you ever taken Ferry Street from my condo to the Academy?”

“You mean, Ferry across Lincoln to the 38th Avenue bridge shortcut?”

“Fuck me…”

“Was THAT the problem with your Uber driver??” Chrissy kidded.

Waverly quickly did the distance calculations in her head while absently responding to Chrissy at the same time, “No, but maybe it should’ve been because that shortcut is genius.”

* * *

Waverly Earp stood in front of her Victimology class in a superhero pose, her fists at her hips before she relaxed them and opened her hands into the pockets of her black cargo pants. Her demeanor relaxed and she turned her head as she made eye-contact with several of the students before starting the class with a single word. 

“Communication. The use of effective verbal and non-verbal skills to convey intended meaning and establish understanding.  One of the four basic tenets of achieving success in any scenario with a victim.”

Waverly didn’t move, not today. She favored pacing the entire frontage of the classroom when she was teaching, but today was too important. Today was the initial point of creating relationships for each recruit in dealing with the hundreds, even thousands of victims most would encounter in their careers. The basis for every confession, every admission, every point of a case that could have a good resolution, started with communication.

“There are four types of communication. Interpersonal, Nonverbal, Written and Oral. Determining the relationship level with the victim and how to effectively communicate with them in a moment of crisis is the difference between being a sufficient police officer and a great police officer. You have to use your repertoire  of communication skills to hone in on critical information. You have to bring everything to the table to get to the core of the incident. You have to know how to reach out,” Waverly pulls her hands from her pockets, pushing them out open wide until she grasps at the air tightly, “and own the relationship for there to be any success in closing a case. You have to hear the victim and the victim has to hear you. When the universe is drowning your victim’s hopes, when they are drowning themselves in coping mechanisms and whatever else will allow them a few hours of relief, you have to find the one word or the one touch that breaks through their walls. You have to go get them sometimes, but when you find that breadth of space in which to build your relationship, that is invaluable to the success of any investigation. So let’s get started on each type, how many methods of nonverbal communication can you think of right now?”

The class began to murmur and hands raised as she looked at each respondent individually, the class devolving into a group discussion.

_Waverly reloaded her Glock for the ninth time and sighted the target in front of her. She squeezed off three shots immediately, all locating themselves near the center of the target. A small adjustment, a slight tilt to her shoulders and four more to the head. She moved from shooter to relaxed stance, holstering her weapon, counting off in her head. Mentally recalling the buzz to fire, Waverly pulled in a quick draw and shot at the target as quickly as possible. Those were located a little low on the torso; she would have to work on that. Holster, buzzer, repeat until the clip was empty, thumbing the magazine release and quickly reloading from her duty belt. Seven more shots before her phone lit up a few times, pulling her concentration away to the extent she finally laid down the weapon. Picking up the phone, she saw she had two missed calls and quite a few text messages, most from Chrissy._

_Chrissy (1913): Where are you? We had dinner scheduled for seven._

_Chrissy (1927): Everyone is here now, even Wynonna…_

_Chrissy (1941): Are you blowing us off or did you legitimately forget?_

_Chrissy (1943): You’re a planner. I know this has been in your books since they released you._

_Chrissy (1944): I’m getting worried, Waves…_

_Waverly held the phone as she weighed her options. Answering now and feigning forgetfulness. Answer in a few hours when there was no hope that she would have to participate at the celebratory dinner in her honor. Or ignore it entirely, disappear for a few more days, like she was apt to do since her accident. Blame the brain damage…how much longer could she get away with that? She had re-qualified and was back on active duty. She was working constantly on bettering herself. Why couldn’t that be a reason? Being at the gun range was a priority. Being here was how she was going to become as good as she once was. Better._

_The irony of the phone ringing as Waverly held the literal weight of her decision within it was not lost on her. “Shit,” she whispered, as the caller ID revealed her aunt’s name, probably the one person who she wouldn’t even try to lie to. “Hi, Aunt Gus!” She exclaimed as she made the split decision to excuse her delay on losing track of time._

_“I knew you would never answer if I called from my phone.”_

_“Wynonna.”_

_“Where are you?”_

_“What does it matter?”_  

_“Well, we’re all at Shorty’s waiting, to celebrate, ya know…you.”_

_“Oh…”_

_“Waves, you should come. We’re all proud of you. I won’t even get drunk.”_

_Waverly laughed at the notion that Wynonna would abstain from whiskey within the confines of Shorty’s and suddenly realized her surroundings, her laser-focus finally waning in light of human emotion._

_“I guess…I guess I just lost track of time. Let me lock up my stuff and I’ll be over in ten.”_

_“Promise?”_

_“Would I lie to you? Don’t answer that. Order us both a whiskey and I’ll get a ride right now,” Waverly confirmed. She briefly realized she was often so unreachable, so adapted to actual tunnel-vision that it was seeping into everything, pulling her away from her friends and family._  

_“Okay, babygirl. I’ll see you in a few. And don’t think I’m not using this decoy phone again to track you down. No one says ‘no’ to Gus.”_

* * *

Normally Waverly moved the menu in her hands with a sway back and forth deciding on what she would order at their favorite bistro, but today it was eerily still in front of her. After just a few moments, Chrissy slapped her own down and took a sip of her mineral water, waiting for her best friend to make a decision. “I’m having the grilled chicken caesar. You must have already decided?”

Waverly was pulled from her stupor by the whack of the plastic against the table and jerked her head a bit before refocusing on the menu.

“Waves…you okay there?”

“Chrissy, do you ever think about all the good things you might have missed because you weren’t paying attention to what was right in front of you?”

Chrissy leaned in slightly, her eyebrows furrowed at the question, “Do you need to be somewhere else? Are you saying that paying attention to me right now isn’t warranted?” she joked as she tossed her hair to the side and winked.

“The redhead this morning…”

“The redhead?”

“The Uber driver. There was something so familiar about her and I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe I know her from somewhere else…” Waverly wondered, her eyes looking past Chrissy trying to place Uber Nicole somewhere in her past.

Chrissy, squinted her eyes,  focusing on her briefly before the waiter came and took their orders, Chrissy going with the salad she had mentioned earlier and Waverly going with a salad as well, no chicken. There was quiet between them momentarily, then Chrissy forged ahead on what Waverly intended with this train of thought. “Well, what exactly happened that makes you feel that way?”

“I feel like we’ve, I don’t know, met...? But that’s impossible. She’s an Uber driver and I’m an instructor at the Academy.”

“What makes you think you haven’t seen her before?” Chrissy asked as she continued to sip on her water.

“Hmm,” Waverly pondered as she sat thinking, her own drink untouched, “maybe we have…she did know her way to the Academy. She knew the shortcut.”

“The one across the 38th bridge? Yeah, that’s someone who perfected a route from a lot of experience, for sure.”

“She said she was at the main precinct for years after she graduated at the Academy, but we’re probably pretty close in age. She was such an asshole, I shouldn’t still be thinking about her…”

“She was a cop? What’s her name? Maybe there’s a reason.”

“ Nicole. Definitely Nicole. And she was...I mean, she was…HOT…” Waverly drifted off as she remembered the slight interactions of the early morning drive, “athletic build, tall, red hair, amazing brown eyes, like she could see through me.”

“That description sorta reminds me of this officer that my dad used to rave over, top so-and-so in all her qualifications, but I think she’s some bigwig in the city now anyways, because she’s not still on the force here, at least Dad doesn’t talk about her anymore.” Chrissy pondered but then immediately dismissed the thought. “Though in fairness, there are over 800 officers in this department, so the chances of you or I even knowing Former Officer Nicole are slim to none.”

“Either way, I just felt like…like I didn’t want the ride to end.”

Chrissy picked at the bread that had just arrived at their table to satiate them while their salads were being prepared, wracking her brain for anyone other than the only redheaded chick her dad had ever mentioned, but came up empty. “Either way, she was an Uber driver. Isn’t it her job to be cordial and such?”

“That’s the thing, she really wasn’t. And dammit if that’s not what made her stand out to me,” Waverly admitted, taking a sip of her water and thinking of anything that would change the subject or get her mind off of the way her morning had started off, “So when is your dad going to be released from physical therapy anyway?”

* * *

Returning after her lunch with Chrissy, Waverly was prepared for what would happen when all the recruits saw her traveling down the hallways towards her afternoon class. Dressed in the standard for Corporals, her red polo with the academy logo bold on the chest, and black cargo pants, she was easy to spot as she exited the duty office and headed for her classroom. 

Waverly immediately rotated her head, manipulating her vision as far to the left and right as possible with each turn. She was oddly owlish as she set her sights from the farthest edge of the hall to the closest, preparing for the onslaught.

The nearest recruit noticed the red first and backed against the wall at attention, “Corporal on deck! Good afternoon, Corporal.” Seven other recruits immediately followed suit.

“Carry on!” Waverly replied confidently and moved seamlessly through the recruits over towards the next hall. As she turned the corner, her reflex to scan and prepare was already in place, noting fewer recruits, but still the post up came. Three hallways, three “carry ons” and finally she was at her last class of the day. She felt more exhausted than normal and pushed away the thought that the extra effort was never going to dwindle in her daily activities.

_Dr. Polanski flooded Waverly’s sight with the penlight, so bright that tears sprang from her eyes. It was either that or the massive headache that had left her unable to lift her head for very long without flipping her stomach sideways and causing stars to appear in her cloudy vision._

_“Waverly, can you look towards the light for just a moment? I know it’s painful, but I just need to check a few things.”_

_Waverly focused and tried to push down the wave of nausea she felt at holding her head up and eyelids open as the cold light flooded her senses. She steadied her breath; she was strong and she would show them everything was perfectly fine._

_“Good, good…” the doctor approved as she pulled the blinding light from Waverly’s direct vision. Waverly let her head loll back against the pillow and shut her eyes immediately, her head swimming. She heard the surgeon almost whisper, “Just a couple more things, take your time, Waverly…”_

_She scrunched her entire face to muster the will and strength to continue, but finally pulled her head from the pillow and gradually opened her eyes again. The throbbing had become almost stabbing and she felt woozy, but she repeated to herself the same words, “just a couple more things.”_

_“Great…you’re doing so great, Waves…all done in a few minutes,” Wynonna championed as she took her hand encouragingly. Waverly could hear the cracks in Wynonna’s voice and she knew it would be so long before any part of that statement would be true._

_“You’re very lucky. Most people don’t take a brick to the back of the head and live to tell about it. You woke up coherent, aware of your surroundings, able to recall the events leading up to your injury. Just speaking would have been a victory, but right now, it appears everything is as good as we could ever hope for.”_

_“She was always hard-headed, doc. This would be no different, I suppose.”_

_Waverly tried to smile, hoping she let Wynonna know she was in on the joke._

_“Focus on my finger, can you follow it without moving your head?”_

_Dr. Polanski moved her finger up and down, side to side, and try as she might, Waverly couldn’t see it without moving her head. Two times, three times, four. She finally closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the hospital bed. “I can’t…”_

_“It’s probably just the exhaustion. We’ll check again in a few hours and I’m sure everything will, well, literally come into focus for you over a few days.”_

_But it didn’t. Every four hours they checked and Waverly’s peripheral vision didn’t return. Tests were run and finally a clear answer determined. The brain damage from the extreme blow to her head saved her functionally for the most part, but her ability to work with full sight was forever gone.  She found it ironic that the thing that had made her so good, her tunnel vision in researching cases and tracking down suspects, was now made physically apparent in her life._  

 _Life had always been a matter of planning and SOP for Waverly. She had lived her life meticulously so that she could succeed to the fullest extent. Confronted with this disability, she realized she had two choices - give in, let it have her, or own it. She was going to recover, get back her place in the Division and catch the next Jack that came for her.  The path ahead was going to be so long, and exhausting, but she wasn’t going to let some small thing like a lack of peripheral vision end her career._  

“TBI. Goddamn TBI,” Waverly uttered low and hollow as she sat down at her desk in the duty office to pack up for the ride home, but she closed her eyes, pinched her nose between her thumb and index finger, and exhaled shakily. Her head was pounding and yet she persisted in collecting her thoughts to wrap up the day. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she opened the Uber app and smiled as she typed in her request. It was a late day for her and she had the slightest hope she’d get the cute driver from this morning, just starting a nightshift.

The phone dinged response for pickup about a minute later and unfortunately Renaldo was definitely not a cute girl’s name. And as Waverly gathered up her four bags and started her march to the door, she wondered exactly how Uber worked and started an internal list as she walked towards the Academy entrance.

_“Was it location based? Was there an algorithm on who got selected first? Is there a way to request a particular tol ginger for all her morning rides?”_

“I see you’re looking just as **_fine_ ** as you did this morning. How in the world do you stay in such great shape when all the corporals are in classrooms throughout the day?” Champ queried loudly as he leaned over his desk to objectify the full length of Waverly’s body. 

“I believe you should attend one of my Arrest Control classes, Champ. You’d be amazed what anyone can do with the right physical tools at their disposal,” she quipped, never slowing her gait, as she pushed breezily through the front doors to find her Uber waiting.

Renaldo certainly didn’t help with her bags and didn’t really say much other than to ask what type of music she preferred for her drive.

“No music necessary; I’m going to work on my agenda briefly. Can you take the 38th Avenue shortcut across the bridge to Ferry?” Waverly asked; hopefully it was a big Uber secret she hadn’t been privy to before this morning.

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that one, ma’am. I’ll be happy to try it if you are okay with extra time should it not work out.”

“That’s fine. I actually have a few questions for you, if that’s okay? I want to know how this Uber thing works….should... you know, I ever want to be a driver,” she suggested, and then launched into every question she could think of for the fifteen minute drive. Mainly, how was she ever going to see Uber Nicole again if she didn’t take matters into her own hands?


	3. the gypsy that remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t believe she left us here to die!” he screamed.
> 
> “Ben, you’re not going to die. I am going to open the bag and get a look at this after you leave, so you’re not in any danger, okay?” Nicole soothed. “Now, slowly step backwards, with your hands feeling for the door behind you until you’re there, then turn and get out fast.”
> 
> “Officer, I can hear it ticking…” Ben’s voice trembled.
> 
> “Then you’d better not waste time,” she looked up at him and winked.

Nicole pulled the Subaru into the garage and shut off the engine. She dropped back against the headrest and closed her eyes. By the Monday morning after her long weekend of carting around college kids and overly ambitious thirty-somethings trying to regain their youth, she always felt like she could barely drag herself from the car and into her house. Reality seemed too daunting and it was with that thought in mind that she closed her eyes and touched the device behind her ear. The quiet had been forced upon her so viciously, but there were moments like now where she secretly relished it. _If I just sit here a few minutes, I can go into the house, straight to bed, without thinking about how fucking sad my life is turning out_ , she rationalized, feeling ensconced in the safety of the driver’s seat, alone, away from the world. The house had photos, mementos of all the things she no longer claimed; the house had history. There was no history in this Subaru. She chuckled to herself as she realized she’d never even had sex in this car. She bought it not a week before everything happened.

* * *

_Lieutenant Randy Nedley palmed his glass of red punch and pulled Nicole in, speaking against her ear as other officers, politicians, and members of the community mingled around them during the annual Berkeley Irish Ball. Nicole shifted uneasily and adjusted her tie for the ninth time in ten minutes._

_“Just relax. You look sharp and I can’t wait to introduce our new bomb tech for BPD. You were top of your class at HDS, you’re enrolled for explosive breaching & terrorist bomber classes, and you’ve already started to prove yourself after having only been an officer for two years. I handpicked you, kid, and you’re going to be a star in this department. You have what it takes to be Chief one day, even if I have to hand it over myself.” _

_Nicole coughed hard at the insinuation that she could be chief. Deep down, it was what she wanted, the top spot to end her career, or at least before she ran for office. When she was about seventeen and considering the “big picture”, Senator Haught had a nice ring to it for a woman in her fifties. She had very clearly set out then to accomplish her goals._

_“Sir, I appreciate your candor. I know it’s a lot of days of choosing to do the right thing and not the easy thing; it’s a lot of days of just trying to solve the problem.”_

_“Nicole, you have a heart for this community. You might be Chief someday, but first let’s get you in the know?” Nedley smiled as he took her by the elbow and angled towards the Director of the City Council. “Director Walters, I’d like you to meet Nicole Haught. She’ll be heading up our EOD Unit starting this spring, and let me tell you, she’s going to keep us safer than we have ever been before, especially with this new homegrown terrorism on the horizon.”_  

_Nicole held out her hand to greet Director Walters, a genuine smile on her face, “So nice to meet you. It sounds so over the top when the Lieutenant uses fancy language. I just want to assure you I’m here to make everyone’s days safer…”_

* * *

Nicole couldn’t really hear the ding of the Uber app, but sensed the light cast by her iPhone glowing in the dark cavern of her garage, and opened one eye suspiciously. Then, slowly, her lips turned up in a smirk. Her last patron had left a rather generous tip and five star rating despite the assholery she had subjected the young woman to. “Well, I be damned…”

It was enough of a oxytocin boost to push Nicole from the confines of her mobile office and into the front door of her house. She flung open the door from her garage into the ranch floorplan and immediately peeled the jacket and sweater off, dropping them to the floor where a few other pieces already lay. She toed her boots off, then unbuttoned her jeans, but she was distracted and thirsty, so she didn’t actually pull them off before making her way to the refrigerator for bottled water, the only thing she had in the entire side-by-side. She broke the seal and chugged half a bottle before opening her eyes and looking back to where she had basically stripped, sighing loudly. _I really need to do laundry today…fuck…_  

But Nicole didn’t do laundry. She finished the water and pulled off her pants, leaving them in the ever-burgeoning pile of clothes, and slouched her way to the bedroom. It was dark and cool, the early morning sun blocked by thick curtains. Her bed waited where she had left it, unmade, blankets half on the floor, top sheet untucked and balled in the corner closest to the door. Nicole fell face-first onto the mattress, her hand dropping her cellphone to the floor beneath. She didn’t even bother to plug it in. Sure, she would have to work tonight, but she didn’t have to be up for a few hours. She knew nature would take its course without any alarm clock…

* * *

  _Nicole stood outside the door to the gymnasium. She suppressed the fear bubbling in her throat with the reassurances she always gave herself. “You’re here to solve the problem. That’s all you have to do,” she repeated the mantra to herself as she adjusted the helmet of her EOD 9 bomb suit. This was always the loneliest moment of her job and she felt a pang of dread before she clicked on the radio and provided an update, though it seemed to no one, she would later recall. “Going down range.”_

_Suddenly, Nicole was standing in front of a young kid, maybe fourteen, and he was crying and shaking his head wildly. There was a backpack on the ground between them. “I can’t believe she left us here to die!” he screamed._

_“Ben, you’re not going to die. I am going to open the bag and get a look at this after you leave, so you’re not in any danger, okay?” Nicole soothed. “Now, slowly step backwards, with your hands feeling for the door behind you until you’re there, then turn and get out fast.”_

_“Officer, I can hear it ticking…” Ben’s voice trembled._

_“Then you’d better not waste time,” she looked up at him and winked as she crouched over the backpack, seeing him start to step away. And then the room turned bright white, burning around her._

* * *

Nicole choked out a scream as the blast pushed her to wakefulness. Her chest and shoulders rose off the bed, her head falling forward, and she agonized over the phantom pain in her head by immediately wrapping her hands around her ears, pushing into her hair.

It took several seconds to realize it was the same persistent nightmare she had lived with for what felt like ages now. Air poured back into her lungs and she flipped herself onto her back, finally beginning to relax, though her hands continued to cover her face for a few minutes. _Goddammit, they were never going to end_.

* * *

_Her throat was so dry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had something to drink. She thought so hard, but nothing came. How many days had it been since she’d had cool water coursing down her throat, sustaining her?_

_She needed it more than anything now, so she pulled weakly on the tube at her throat. It shifted an inch perhaps before a friend, Jeremy, was suddenly at her side, guiding her hand away, pushing the button nestled in her sheet for a nurse. “No, stop…the nurse will be right in to help you.”_

_And they were. A nurse and a doctor, three doctors, they all blurred slightly in Nicole’s vision as she tilted her head from Jeremy towards the light drifting in, now blocked by Lieutenant Nedley. They grew in size as she realized where she was, and her horror grew as she waited for all the healthcare team to extract her breathing tube. She spit the last bit of terror out with the tube, the question pushing past the hoarse whisper, “what happened?”_

_Nedley came over to her then, leaning down, his hands at her shoulders pushing her back to the bed. His words hanging between them as she furrowed her brow, not understanding. She shook her head?_

_“Nicole, what I’m saying is…” and that was all she could tell as he exaggeratedly enunciated._

_Why…why the fuck couldn’t she hear him? What was he saying?_

_She spat out her questions, “What? I..How long have I been out?”_

_And there it was again, words without volume, pushed at her from Nedley’s mouth, Jeremy standing to the side, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. Why the fuck couldn’t she hear them?_  

_Suddenly the throbbing in her head pushed her eyes closed and she fell listlessly back against the vinyl-covered mattress. It was so instant and all-consuming that both men leaned in sharply, wondering if her reawakening had been the precursor to something even more horrific. But finally, she took a few breaths, her heart rate steadying, and she whispered, “I can’t hear you, Lieutenant…”_

* * *

Seeing as how Nicole obviously couldn’t sleep, she repurposed herself for a few chores, throwing on some some old ripped sweats and a white tank top and moving through the house, creating an actual basket full of laundry. She started a load and then went back through the house again, gathering up empty plastic water bottles for recycling and admonishing herself for never making it to the market for a high-grade reusable model. She made a note on the pad magnetized to her fridge door to get one and proceeded back through the house with a trash bag, dumping all the takeout cartons she had accumulated in a week’s time. _I should be making a note to actually stop eating out and buy groceries._ That never made it to her list.

It was Monday…the start of everyone’s week, which usually meant the end of Nicole’s. But she definitely had to work again tonight, she determined, as she eyed the stack of bills on her desk. She plopped down on the couch and weighed her options. She was debating cleaning or going out when she drifted off to sleep, the sounds of the world marching into the workweek outside, so far away.

 

 **BOOM**.

 

Nicole’s neck jerked off the back of the couch with the explosion in her dream and she cursed under her breath in frustration. “I’ve had enough of this shit…”

She knew when it got this bad there was only one thing to do, and that was work out her demons. She didn’t bother to change, just added sneakers to her minimal clothing, and went down to the basement. Aligned against each wall was a different option: weights on her right, a treadmill at the far wall, an elliptical on the left, and in the center, a decades-old punching bag. She walked over to the right beside the weights, where a high-tech sound system was shelved and waiting. A couple of quick presses of light fingers and a guitar riff, followed by deep bass filled the room. It was entirely too loud, so loud it would hurt most people, and Nicole found that comforting in a way. DJ Shadow’s “Nobody Speak” permeated the room as Nicole began to punish the heavy bag and then herself with each fist against the thick leather.

Ten minutes in she was focused on the animal instinct required to hit the same thing again and again with no purpose other than physical exertion and strength-building. Nicole loved it. She just let her mind roam on autopilot...

_I wonder how quickly Sun Garden takes to deliver on a Monday afternoon?_

_If you’re going to eat Chinese, you need to spend an extra fifteen on the elliptical._

_You know damn well you’re not getting on the elliptical today._

_Treadmill?_

_Ugh, I really don’t want to do that either._

_But Chinese…._

_You could do that new Amazon Prime delivery and get actual groceries._

_Then you would feel the need to cook. Do you want to cook today?_

_I never want to cook when I’m alone._

_I bet the instructor cooks..._

Nicole missed her next round on the bag, spinning wildly, and grabbed against it for a moment to catch her breath, “Huh…” she shook her head and chuckled at herself, then pulled back and began to pummel the bag again.

 

_So Chinese then._

_Elliptical or treadmill? Elliptical._

_Mongolian Beef or Sesame Chicken._

_I wonder if the instructor likes Chinese food._

_I bet she’s vegan. Probably vegetarian at the least._

_Too bad I’ll never know._

_You could maybe find out somehow._

_I mean, she’s at the Academy…_

_She’s new at the Academy._

_How long has it been since I was there?_

_I should check in on Nedley._

_But then I’d have to actually go._

_But she might be there._

_She did say she was an instructor._

_You could ask Jeremy._

_You_ **_can’t_ ** _ask Jeremy._

_She was really…something…_

 

Nicole gave the last of her energy away with a hard final swing and pulled the bag into a hug against her exhausted body when the centripetal force rounded it back towards her. The sweat of her body made it slip and slide against her taut abs and thighs, her tank long ago discarded on the floor, as she caught her breath, swaying with the bag. She finally let go her grip and glanced over at the elliptical, “Fuck you.”

* * *

_The fog of her warm breath was thick against the cold, grey January morning. She had just completed a good five mile run and was cooling down at a jog when a tall, fit gentleman appeared beside her._

_“Dolls.”_

_“Haught”_

_“Brisk out this morning, but you’re still getting in your run,” Xavier Dolls continued._

_“You know, it’s just habit now. It’s this and work and…” Nicole let her actual answer dissipate before completing it. She and Dolls continued jogging in unison, a quick but accessible pace for talking._

_“So when are you going to join me at BBD? I could put you to good work with the constant meth labs and homegrown militia we’ve been encountering lately?”_

_“Oh, I can’t. I’m all in for a career with Berkeley PD. I want to retire as Chief,” Nicole replied coolly._

_“Don’t I know, and then run for office?” Dolls risked a glance at Nicole, looking for the truth without either of them breaking stride._

_“I wouldn’t say no to having some influence over these fine officers and civilians I’m privileged to occupy the same community as,” Nicole replied confidently._

_“Spoken like a true politician,” Dolls observed, as they rounded the last curve of the path in Berkeley Marina Park._

_Nicole could feel Dolls pressuring her without so much as a specific word. Her reply was faster than she intended, “Tell you what, first local terrorism that comes up, give me a call. That’s the least I could do.”_

_“Sounds like a plan. I’ll be ringing you up sooner than you ever thought possible--that’s my fear.”_

_Nicole and Dolls ran for a few blocks more before their conversation continued._

_“Hey, Nicole…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“What do you do for fun? I mean, I know you’re supposedly dating the hot doctor that we never see unless you’re both at an event together, but do you...have hobbies or something?”_

_Nicole jogged a few more yards as if she didn’t hear Xavier originally, but then stopped._

_“We do stuff...we go rock-climbing, and we have talked about going to Vegas to see Britney in the spring. Shae is nice and she’s smart and beautiful,” Nicole slowed down, her mind no longer on the run, “X...I should marry her, right? That’s where this is going, I think, because we’re both focused on the future and how this should be, I don’t know, part of the plan.”_  

_“Wow, Haught, don’t sound so excited about it,” Dolls smirked, catching his breath as Nicole organized her thoughts._

_“I feel like I shouldn’t be asking for more. I mean, you and I happen to end up on our runs together often, and I go out with the team for drinks sometimes, and there’s the rock-climbing, but god...I just...Shae works a lot, which I totally understand,” Nicole defended, “and when we do spend time together, it’s nice...probably what I should be happy about, especially when I’m looking to advance in the department, she’s a great support for me.”_  

_Dolls furrowed his brow, causing sweat to drip down into his eyes. He took the opportunity of pulling his shirt up to wipe his face as an extra delay in responding, looking carefully for the right words. He stuttered a few times before trying to formulate a reply._

_“Nicole, you know I don’t do relationships, so I have no business even asking this...but do you believe love is supposed to be solid commitment, mortgage, a couple of kids, and choosing to go through life together despite all the obstacles that will inevitably come? Or do you believe it is some sweeping irrepressible devotion, making you look foolish and insane at times because you just can’t stand to survive without this person you’ve chosen, all other circumstances be damned?”_

_Nicole looked up at Dolls, almost wincing at both the intimacy and his uncharacteristically contemplative nature, and then past him, into the sky with the sun cresting over the horizon._

_“I don’t know...but somewhere inside, I really wish it could be both,” Nicole confessed._

_Xavier caught Nicole’s eye a moment later, his head tilting towards her and genuine smile forming on his mug. “Well maybe don’t go to Vegas until you decide if that’s what this is? Don’t want your marriage, of all things, going boom.”_

_Nicole didn’t say anything else, just nodded her head sharply and stretched her legs indicating they should get back to their original task._

_And with that they kicked the last mile of their run into high gear and Nicole hadn’t thought more about bombs that day, especially not ones that would be in a school, with innocent kids prey and predator at the same time._

* * *

Nicole wandered upstairs, exhausted from her beatdown, and opened the fridge, hoping for more than just water. But there it was, so she took it, finishing the entire bottle in one greedy gulp. She put the plastic in her recyclable container and and strolled into the living room.

It was the nicest the place had looked in a couple months. She had taken a Swiffer with her and began touching up the dusty shelves, photos of her and her accomplishments, a few of her long-ignored friends and family, everyone who used to have a place, but she had slowly pushed out of her life as her career became her sole focus, a couple from childhood, but all painful. She remembered this is why she never cleaned. She had to be constantly reminded of the life she had lost. She had seen everything slip from her grasp, everything but the physical breath in her body and it hurt. It hurt bad.

_Why do I keep these photos out?_

_Take them down; box them away._

She pulled one off the shelf, a photo from her Academy graduation day. A bright, shiny and ambitious Nicole surrounded by fellow recruits, saluting. She dropped it to the floor, but for whatever reason it didn’t break on the hardwood.

_I’m not this officer anymore._

_I’m nothing._

_I can’t even drop a goddamn photo for breaking properly._

Nicole rolled her eyes at herself, but picked up the frame. She set it back on the shelf and dusted the front, her lips turning up slightly despite herself.

_You could go back._

_I can’t be a cop._

_You can be an instructor. The job is waiting._

_I can’t._

 

_You can._

 

_Plus you’d get to see the cute girl._

 

Nicole shook her head, trying to dislodge this morning’s last ride from her memory. But Waverly remained, seated in the middle of the backseat of her Subaru, with her agenda and her attitude.

_She could never love you, Nicole._

_You’re damaged, probably beyond repair._

And with that Nicole sank down into the recliner, tears streaming down her face.

 

_I’m so tired..._

* * *

_Either Nicole had gotten better at reading lips or some part of her hearing was gradually coming back. The latter was what she consoled herself with as she waited in the doctor’s office for the results of the latest scans._

_Dr. Sloan came in so deftly that Nicole somehow missed his entrance until he was circling around his desk and laying the folder open in front of her.  He leaned towards her waiting, so she did him the same kindness, leaning towards his desk before he began speaking.;_

_“So, Nicole, basically what the tests revealed were what I had expected. You have profound hearing loss, mostly located in your left ear, but some in your right as well. It stems from the concussive blast at the accident.”_

It wasn’t an accident. It was intentional, _Nicole thought to herself._

_“I think you’ve done pretty well adjusting so far, but we need to look into measures that are going to help you get the greatest quality of life. I think hearing aids and probably some courses in ASL would offer the quickest and best payoff, don’t you?” he offered with a kind smile of encouragement._

_Nicole just looked at him blankly. She had endured three surgeries and months of rehabilitation to get back. She had lingering scars from the blast and numerous incisions tracing up along her eye socket to well behind her ear. She had pushed her body in every way to only be told that wasn’t enough suddenly._

_“No, doc…you said if I had the surgeries, if I did all the rehab, that it…”_

_Sloan cut her off, “I said that gave us the highest probability. I know it’s tough to take, Nicole, but I just can’t offer you false hope.”_

_“Sergeant…” she mumbled._

_“What?”_  

_“Sergeant Haught. I am a police sergeant and you should address me as such,” Nicole confirmed in disillusionment, tapping the desk, leaning back from Sloan’s proximity with false confidence._

_Sloan crooked his head slightly at the suggestion but then acquiesced, “Yes, of course, Sergeant Haught. I’m sure the department has a place where you can continue in your current rank.”_  

_“No, I can’t be a tech if I can’t register all the small sounds of the devices,” she responded dejectedly._

_“But you’re a Sergeant, so you can move into another…”_

_Nicole cut him off abruptly, “I don’t want another field. I wanted to devote my career to this until I was promoted to Chief. Chief, don’t you understand? CHIEF!” she spat at him, standing up, her chair tilting behind her, wavering and finally thumping back behind her knees._

_“Sergeant Haught, you can still serve in the department. Lieutenant Nedley assured me of as much when we initially discovered the hearing loss,” confirmed Dr. Sloan._

_“I don’t want charity. I don’t want to just be there. I wanted to be…I needed to be…” and with that, her legs gave way and she sank to the chair, head in arms and tears pushing out of her eyes as she whispered, “…I was going to be...Now I am nothing. I’m nothing and no one.”_

* * *

Three loads of laundry later, Nicole pulled another water from her fridge, twisted the cap and drank greedily. She had dusted, vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms, _even the guest bathroom_ , she mused to herself. She was disgustingly sweaty, her body ached and had since boxing, and she was satisfied.

_Look at you starting the week with everyone else, like a successful adult._

_If you’re going to pay for the house, you might as well enjoy it._

She peered into the fridge again as if that would magically make dinner appear for her and looked at the clock on the microwave. 1438 hours. 1438 and she wasn’t planning on being in her car for another few hours.

_Amazing what you can get done with no sleep and a little motivation._

_I have to go to work tonight so I can pay for this water I’m drinking._

_You know that’s not why you did this…_

 

Nicole’s phone dinged and she picked it up from the counter, confirming it was fully charged for the first time in months, and unplugged it.

 

Jeremy: I thought I saw your ellipses.

Nicole: What?

Jeremy: Like you were texting me earlier but I never got a text.

Nicole: Oh, it was nothing.

Jeremy: Still enjoying the beach at your parents?

 

Nicole stared at the phone for a solid five minutes.

 

Nicole: Yeah, I might never come back.

Jeremy: Well, you know if you do, we’d love to have you over here.

Nicole: I don’t think I’d cut it as a teacher.

Jeremy: You did a really good job with me.

Nicole: You were a dream student, you nerd.

Jeremy: You were a dream instructor, Sergeant Haught.

 

Nicole knew Jeremy didn’t need to lie to her. He was the first one by her side after the detonation at the school that day. He had seen her bloodied and near death. He was one of the few that had sat by her bed, well after visiting hours, waiting for her to wake up for a week afterward. It would always haunt her that he had moved into Digital Forensics after the explosion, that he hadn’t stayed with the department as a bomb tech, missing his entrance into Hazardous Device School.

 

Nicole: I guess someone is teaching that class?

Jeremy: They brought in a former agent from BBD. She’s really smart & funny, but she’s just handling UO until they find someone permanently.

Nicole: They’ll probably offer it to her after this initial class.

Jeremy: Only if you decided to take up residence in Oceanside.

Nicole: Tempting…

 

Nicole laid down the phone, even when she heard Jeremy’s reply text notification moments later. She sighed and threw the now empty water bottle in the recycle bin. She swayed as she walked through the house, pulling her pants off enroute to the shower. But she returned moments later and gathered up the discarded clothes, putting them in the basket before turning the hot water as high as it would go and succumbing to its cleansing steam.

* * *

_Nicole’s eyes narrowed as she sat across from Nedley; he cleared his throat before beginning his rehearsed, loud monologue._

_“Haught, the Berkeley Police Department would like to offer you a permanent, full-time position at the Academy, training our future fine service professionals in Unusual Occurrences and perhaps a few other courses. I think you’d be great at…” but Nedley doesn’t get to finish his advise._

_“It’s a desk job, Lieutenant .”_

_That’s what Nedley is now, a Commander at the Academy, where he moved after The Incident. Nicole tells herself that has nothing to do with her. But when Nedley looks at her with eyes that cut through the bullshit, she’s not so sure._

_“It’s a damn fine position teaching the future officers of our city. You have always been about community service, Sergeant Haught.”_

_“I wanted to be on the force until I made Chief,” she explains rather matter-of-factly._

_“You would remain on the force, Sergeant Haught, just not on active duty,” he confirms._

_Nicole sits in her full uniform, picking at the side hem of her pants leg for an indefinite amount of time. She argues internally. She doesn’t WANT this, but she doesn’t WANT to stop working at fulfilling her goals, her dreams of one day…no, that’s not an option anymore, she reminds herself._

_“Actually, sir, I’m thinking of taking some time off. I know I’ve been out on medical, but I believe I had built up quite a bit of PTO from my eight years of service. I should go visit my parents in Southern California for a while before I commit to the next step in my…career,” she finishes shakily._

_Nedley sighs and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms, and tilting his head down as if considering an alternative to this new argument. Finally she sees the resignation in his face._

_“I suppose you do have a lot of time. I can’t deny your request to see your family and I think the sun might do you more good than you’re expecting. I’ll hold the position for you until you return.”_

_“That won’t be necessarily, Lieutenant.”_

_Nedley huffs and then reiterates, “I will hold the position for you until you return, Sergeant Haught.”_

_Nicole nods sharply and stands then, saluting, and excusing herself. She crooks her foot outside the door to walk down the hall, but instead one-eighty’s to the wall, letting her head rest against the slick-paint cinderblocks, breath escaping in spurts from her mouth._

_“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t just be a shell of what I was. I can’t even be a shadow any longer,” she whispers to herself as she runs a finger inside the tight collar of her dress blues. “I’m done. “_

* * *

Ultimately Nicole didn’t have Chinese. But she did sleep for six straight hours, dreamless and restorative, after her shower, clean sheets, and a tidied house. She had realized, standing under the cooling waters of a long shower that she actually had a thought today that didn’t involve mere survival. She might be the slightest bit alive and she had some strange, beautiful passenger, who she kept trying to ignore could literally be found at a place she knew like the back of her hand, to thank for it. And as she got ready for work, long neglected hair dripping down her back, she tried to familiarize herself with a feeling she hadn’t encountered in a very long time. The feeling of hope. Maybe she would drive over the 38th Avenue Bridge just to see if anyone needed a ride home this evening…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb: hi! so i'm going to EHCon next week and therefore we won't post a new chapter. i am so grateful to everyone for reading, and leaving kudos & comments; more than i could ever say. please feel free to hit me up on twitter @comelayinmybed and i'm on tumblr at the same: comelayinmybed. and HEY, if you're going to EHCon, find me there too!! :)
> 
> Lucky’s notes: What’s it going to take for Nicole to become the multi-dimensional woman we know she can be? As S3E3 Waverly says, “If we're all destined to be here and we're all gonna die here, we need to figure out how to be here together.  
> Come say hi on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo!


	4. i don't wanna sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly dragged her hand slowly and deliberately down Nicole’s arm one last time, holding her wrist with one hand while she moved to yank a Sharpie from the sleeve pocket of her 5.11 Corporal shirt with the other. Jerking the lid off with her teeth, she turned to lean into Nicole, mildly distracted by delicious body heat, and wrote her number up the length of an alabaster forearm.

Waverly Earp had about given up on ever seeing Uber Nicole again after three weeks of daily commuting to the Academy. After her Q&A session with the evening driver, she had tried to play the cards in her favor.

Week One was scheduling and immediately cancelling until she was almost late for work every day. She learned she could type in her pickup location, wait for the notification of the driver and car, and when she saw it wasn’t Uber Nicole, she cancelled. She played the odds up until she had to get a ride or be late to her first class. Not once did Blue Subaru appear as an option.

Going in to Week Two, Waverly had evaluated and determined her timing was off. She recalled Uber Nicole saying that she was ending her shift at that original pickup, so she just started casually requesting her Uber earlier and earlier in the mornings. Combining this with the request and cancel method of Week One could only improve her chances, right?

 

 **Wrong**.

 

Waverly watched as the latest Uber pulled away from the curb, the kind older Englishman with bad teeth and a wide smile, waving congenially at her, leaving her alone in the dark of early morning. Waverly sighed heavily and realized it was time to give up. She slung the heavy bag over her arm, looking up at the sky briefly, when a car horn jutted into her attention, if not her vision. The blue Subaru slowed to a stop right in front of Waverly and the passenger’s side window slid down automatically.

“Do you need a ride or did you just get here?” Nicole asked, as she ducked her head shyly.

“Nicole!” Waverly yelped excitedly. “I…I need a ride…”

Lies. It was all lies. But Waverly had waited so long to see her again, she didn’t care. She’d just be late to class. She was the teacher, she rationalized; it would be fine.

“I think you actually have to request it in the app…I don’t see anything coming up,” Nicole confirmed as she gazed down at her phone.

“Right…right! I was just…” Waverly gathered up her own phone and opened the app, leaving a tip for the gentleman who had just dropped her off and requesting a pickup, “I just hadn’t had a chance to get all the information in,” she sang.

Momentarily Nicole’s phone dinged with the request, as she was indeed the closest pickup, and she confirmed approval to proceed, “There we are! Climb aboard!”

Waverly opened the car door and sat down in the backseat, pulling her sundry books and bags along with her.

“Back home?” Nicole queried.

“Oh yes, I forgot a…a textbook…essential to the class today,” clamored Waverly with an excuse as to why she needed to head back to the place she had just come from.

“That’s unfortunate. Must be so irritating to leave something and not be able to just hop in the car and go get it,” sympathised Nicole.

“It is…” Waverly responded absently. She thought for a minute how much sense this didn’t make, but that Nicole wasn’t asking those pertinent questions, so she changed the subject rapidly. “I haven’t seen you around the last few weeks. Have you been off or just working different shifts?" 

The car lumbered forward, and turned slowly back onto the main drive, Nicole remembering the way back towards Waverly’s condo, because it was actually the way back to her own house. She hummed to herself in thought before processing an answer, “Well, I’m on nightshift normally, and mostly on the weekends, so I wouldn’t usually be available for pickups or deliveries…that’s what we call them…not to be impersonal, but I wouldn’t be working the times you’re needing an Uber maybe?

“Oh…” Waverly sighed. That explained why she could never get Nicole no matter how she tried in each and every request.

But it was as if Nicole sensed her disappointment and wanted to offer some small consolation. “But I’m thinking of broadening my hours…days…I could maybe, I don’t know, work more 6pm to 6am?” she asked, her lips turning up in a hopeful question towards the rearview mirror.

“I could definitely use a pickup around 6am everyday, sometimes earlier,” Waverly confirmed, a smile breaking across her face.

“I could definitely stand to end my shift with a face as lovely  as yours…” and Nicole stopped in the middle of her sentence because she realized she still didn’t know the cute corporal’s name.

“Waverly,” she replied knowingly, “my name’s Waverly.”

“Waverly,” Nicole repeated assuredly, “Waverly, I could definitely stand to see you at the end of my shifts.”

And so quickly they were back at Waverly’s house, the car idling in front, a “Want me to wait while you pick up your book and schedule a return to the Academy?” from Nicole.

A definitive “Please” from Waverly in response.

The drive back was a bit quieter at the beginning. Nicole looked in the mirror at the substantial yet impractical book that Waverly had emerged from her front door with. Ancient Mysticism and the Art of Manipulation was not something she felt had a real bearing on any police academy class, especially Unusual Occurrences. But she didn’t ask and Waverly didn’t volunteer. Finally, in the silence, Waverly asked the question she really wanted an answer to, that is... besides whether Nicole was single. 

“So why aren’t you an officer anymore? Why do you drive Uber?” she posed innocently.

Nicole coughed and cleared her throat because she didn’t have an adequate response for the three minutes remaining of the drive. So she went with what she told everyone else, especially those people who didn’t have any business knowing, well..hers.

“I got hurt about a year ago and it just wasn’t practical to stay on as an officer,” she replied robotically. 

“You said you did EOD. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t offer you a position teaching,” Waverly responded immediately, “which is ironic, since you would be great in UO and I took it on as a last-moment addition.”

Nicole coughed again, harder this time.

She acted like she didn’t hear Waverly, but she shifted uneasily in the driver’s seat as they pulled back up to the curb and the car slowed to a stop. The idling motor made an ostentatious clicking sound in the suddenly uncomfortable confines of the Subaru. Finally, Nicole spoke, “So we’re here…”

“Ah, yes, and I thank you again for driving me to get this ridiculous book and…well, right back to the Academy. Is that even covered in the request?”

“Um, I’m not sure, but don’t worry about it,” Nicole excused.

Waverly moved to gather her things, but she just wanted…she needed more information. “So, you’re driving nights and this is the end of your shift, but also only on weekends,” she confirmed under her breath.

“I could um…I am going to drive more morning shifts,” Nicole stammered.

Waverly nearly dropped the textbook of contention in her anxious response, “You are??”

“I mean, I have to work more anyway lately, so I should ya know…just…stay on shift, maybe till…” she turned and narrowed her eyes trying to gauge the appropriate time to be available for Waverly’s pickup…”five…”

“Five is good…but you know, you’d get more business, “ Waverly hiccuped, “more rides…” she stuttered…”SIX. Six is better.”

“Six it is then, Waves,” Nicole declared, “And probably, ya know, around this area and…uh…the Elmwood District…”she mentioned, tipping her head away from Waverly shyly, in case that was a bit too forward.

“Elmwood is a great location for morning pickups,” Waverly declared, “at least from what I know…living there and all.”

“It is great, for more reasons that I imagined originally,” Nicole said, thinking about how she and Waverly must live within a few miles of each other at most. How had fate already interceded for them?

The alarm on Waverly’s phone sounded and brought both her and Nicole quickly back to earth’s harsh reality. Waverly finally broke the stare set at the beginning of the surreptitious scheduling of their next…date? Neither was sure what to call it, but it was some universal plan to see each other again. “I should go, I suppose.” 

Nicole swung into action, practically jumping from the driver’s seat, out the door and around the car, opening the passenger side for Waverly and helping her with the bags, just like last time. It was almost a repeat of the ethereal vision Waverly had witnessed on their original trip. Nicole standing in front of the sun, tall and proud, her red mane glowing, her smile illuminating her inherent warmth. How did Waverly even know she had warmth? She just knew; she surmised because how could Nicole NOT have warmth? Waverly slowly absorbed that and then took her bags from Nicole’s open arms and pushed her hands down against her coat. “So, early morning pickups in Elmwood… 

Nicole winked, tilting her head forward slightly in confirmation, “Early morning pickups in Elmwood.”

Waverly walked slowly away from Nicole, turning before she pushed open the main door to reception at the Academy, to see Nicole still outside, leaning back against the Subaru now, her arms crossed, almost ogling Waverly, but she couldn’t even make herself mind. It was pretty much set Nicole was going to be picking up Waverly in one way or another again, and very soon, she hoped.

* * *

  **~ day 2 ~**

It was just one extra day, Nicole argued with herself, when she had decided to work a full shift before picking up Waverly the next morning. It was riddled with requests and cancels and a really creepy dude who tempted her to rest her hand on the Glock 43 she kept secured inside her waistband, for the entire duration of the drive. Patrons couldn’t see her 9mm, tucked under her jacket or flannel button-up, but she always carried a gun. Tonight she was glad for the feeling of security it offered her, but after she dropped him off at the end of a rundown trailer park, she remained jumpy. Arriving at Waverly’s condo, she sprang from her car, angling over to the passenger side and grabbing the three bags before Waverly could even say hello. “Ready? I know you like to be there early.”

Waverly just furrowed her brows even as her head swiveled to continue watching Nicole put the bags into the backseat and circled back to see her holding open the car door for her to climb inside. “Thank you?”

Nicole just grunted slightly in response, slamming the car door when she saw Waverly situated and buckling her seatbelt. She swerved back around to the driver’s side and dropped into the bucket seat sharply, her gun angling into her hipbone, causing her to cringe.

“You okay there, Nicole?” Waverly asked. She might be partially blind but anyone could tell the redhead was flustered.

“I’m…ya know, I’m fine, I just...I had a really weird dude request a ride out to a mostly abandoned trailer park and I just had a bad feeling. I guess I’m still a little on edge,” Nicole explained.

Waverly leaned forward slightly, awkwardly attempting to comfort Nic, her hand sliding to the console between the driver and passenger seats, concern perched at her fingertips. “You were scared. I would have been too.”

“I think a little, yes. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to trust anyone again,” Nicole conceded.

Waverly took a beat to determine if Nicole meant just in terms of strangers, her Uber patrons, or humankind in general. She went with the latter and realized it might take a bit more to reach this woman she had taken a shine too than she originally thought. _Just get her out of the funk, Waves._

“I bet you carry a gun, and that personally makes me feel safer. The ride is over and you can’t keep wondering about what he was doing or why he was going out there….” Waverly paused, staring intently at the back of Nicole, waiting for an indication that she could accept this reasoning. She saw a slight tip of Nicole’s head, and proceeded with her plan. “But what you *can* do is help me figure out the trivia to share with my classes today!”

“Trivia?” Nicole asked, a lilt towards Waverly’s suggestion.

“Yes, trivia. I have this book…” Waverly leaned down and pulled a rather fat book from her bag, covered with black and white lettering, bright red question and exclamation marks on the front cover, entitled Now I Know. “I pull something from it everyday for class.” She opened the book directly in front of her face, damming Nicole’s view of her frothy excitement via the rearview mirror, and began mumbling.

“I can’t hear you!” Nicole admonished.

Waverly put the book down in her lap and chuckled. “Oh I’m sorry, I need to have things close to read them and I tend to obscure my speaking voice when I do that. It’s why I am always spending every free moment preparing. Preparing means I’m not reading, it’s all up here,” Waverly pointed to her head and winked, “I’m a planner!”

“I like that you’re always doing your best,” Nicole admired almost enviously. “So what did you choose today?”

“Ah, you choose!” Waverly picked up the book, smack in front of her face again but spoke louder and much more clearly this time. “Do you want to know about the 27th letter of the alphabet or where ‘OMG’ comes from?”

Nicole tilted her head in thought; had her hands been free from driving, they would’ve gone to her chin, as if making a serious decision. She only betrayed herself with the tiny smile she displayed, her dimple appearing quickly and then retreating, “Definitely the 27th letter of the alphabet.”

“Excellent choice,” confirmed Waverly who then began to educate Nicole on just how the ampersand got its name, “Well, you see, the ampersand was developed along with the rest of the alphabet back in the early years of Rome in the seventh century B.C.E. Romans would occasionally combine the letter E and T into a similar symbol, representing the word ‘et’ meaning ‘and’. It was included in the Old English alphabet, which was still in use in medieval times. When Old English was discarded in favor of the modern English we are familiar with, the ampersand maintained its status as a member of the alphabet to a degree, with some regions and dialects opting to include it until the mid-1800’s…”

And Waverly continued in her succinct explanation and Nicole continued being enraptured with whatever the brunette wanted to tell her. She could read the phonebook and Nic would have been mesmerized. _Tomorrow ask for the more complicated explanation of the two offers._ With that plan in mind, Nicole drove smoothly over to the Academy, their twelve minutes coming to an end all too quickly. She pulled up to the curb and hopped from the car to open Waverly’s door, pulling out her accompanying materials, including the trivia book she had neatly stowed away, having just finished the full history of the ampersand within the last two minutes of their ride. Once Waverly  had exited the Subaru Nicole handed her the bags, and they both sighed and stared at the ground uncomfortably for a moment.

“You’re taking more shifts?”

“Definitely. I’ll definitely be working tonight, so you could…”

“I could request an Uber tomorrow morning about the same time?”

“You could…and I would probably be the closest for pickup,” Nicole confirmed, her toes turning her black Iron Ranger boots absently into the rough cement, her eyes fixed on nothing adjacent to Waverly as she was too nervous to confirm that’s what she really wanted.

“I will definitely be doing that, in 23 hours and 48 minutes.” Waves confirmed, a smile breaking across her face, lines forming around her eyes in joy.

“Yes ma’am, I will be…I’ll be ready. You have a great day, Corporal. Let me know how my choice for trivia is received by the recruits.” Nicole requested, finally meeting Waverly’s gaze and returning her gorgeous smile. She held their moment in her memory and then slowly stepped back to let Waverly walk past her in an arrow-straight line for the door. She climbed back inside the Subaru, taking out her notepad upon which she kept various bits and pieces of information, jotting down simply the symbol for “and” and then she hummed the end chorus of one of her favorite songs, whispering the last few lines so low she couldn’t even hear herself…”and you’re only mine…”

* * *

  **~ day 3 ~**

Nicole pulled up to the curb and sighed. Seven days in a row of working over twelve hours a shift was getting to her. God she was exhausted, but the thought of not being able to see Waverly won out over her very rough Wednesday. Three businessmen from the east coast had basically decimated her will to live overnight, changing their mind each time she had arrived to their originally requested location. But Waverly…Nicole had reasoned, and now she was being rewarded because there was Waverly, waiting for her, standard dress for the Academy, but with the addition of a cute denim jacket, her two bags leaning against her legs. _They must be heavy, I will get them._

She threw the gear shifter into park and jumped from the driver’s seat, rounding the car and opening the door for Waverly. Pulling the bags from around Waverly’s ankles, she ushered her in to the Subaru. “Your chariot awaits, my lady.”

“Your lady?” Waverly chuckled.

“Maybe someday,” Nicole whispered as she drew in a breath and heaved the bags in behind Waverly.

“What’s that?”

“Oh nothing! Just a cliche as you know,” Nicole dismissed, embarrassed. “Are we headed towards the Academy today?”

“Yes, please,” Waverly responded absently, pulling her agenda from one of the bags, and setting it on her lap. She took out a pen and jotted down a few notes.

Waverly was entirely focused on something and Nicole felt a little disappointed. She had **_suffered_ ** to get this twelve minutes with Waverly and she was being basically dismissed. Their first two days on the morning ride had been so light and fun. But her building frustration was interrupted by a flashing light, the high beam of her iPhone indicating an incoming phone call. In the darkness of the early morning, the beam rippled like lightning through the cab of the Subaru and Waverly jumped and stifled a squeal. Nicole turned a shade of red akin to her hair, embarrassed and dismissive, “Sorry, so sorry. I have it on because sometimes I can’t hear…” Nicole self-corrected, “sometimes the music is really loud is all.”

Waverly’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head slowly in dawning understanding. _But the screen lights up? Or maybe it doesn’t, because you didn’t see it beforehand either way._ “It’s fine, please go ahead, don’t mind me.”

Nicole didn’t WANT to answer the phone. But she knew if she didn’t, there would just be more questions. Waverly didn’t seem to be paying much attention either way, her head buried again, now in a book about the history of the Wild West. _How does that relate to teaching? Ugh, I guess I should answer this_. She glanced back at Waverly and then hit the audio button on her iPhone, and the speakers broadcasted her entirely too personal conversation to Waverly’s ears.

“Hi Mom, I’m heading somewhere right now and can’t really talk.”

“Oh are you heading somewhere for work? I thought you would just be going in about this time. It’s so early, Nicole,” came the crackly response over the car’s bluetooth.

Nicole grimaced and barely gave her mother a moment before responding, “Actually on night-shifts this week, so I’m…I’m wrapping up this last thing and heading home. Can I call you back then?”

“Hmm. You must have neglected to mention the nightshift to your father and me. I’m sure you’re exhausted. No need to call back, but I wanted to let you know we’ve got some mail here from your boss and…”

“My boss?” Nicole cut off, momentarily forgetting Waverly was in the car, and she probably shouldn’t have a ‘boss’ seeing as how Uber drivers essentially worked for themselves.

“Your captain? Lieutenant? Officer Ne…” Nicole slammed her finger onto the red phone icon and the call dropped. It immediately began ringing again, the same horrid flashing light reverberating through the car’s interior. She wanted to shrink into the seat and disappear from embarrassment, but she just declined the second call and cleared her throat, trying to think of any small explanation for Waverly. “Parents, ay?”

Waverly squinted and Nic couldn’t tell if she was trying to read the reaction or if she was just genuinely confused. Probably both. But she just tilted her head and a smile appeared slowly, “Our families want to think they know what we need all the time, right?" 

“Yeah…” Nicole sighed.

“I’ve always been pleasantly surprised at how supportive mine was, even when I didn’t take their advice. Part of life is living through hard choices sometimes,” Waverly consoled.

“You’ve got that right, at least the part about living through hard choices.”

“Sometimes we don’t realize how lucky we are I guess. I’d love for my mom to call early on a Wednesday morning just to tell me I had mail…” Waverly trailed on, wistfully.

Nicole shook her head slightly in agreement, noticing how Waverly’s voice had turned solemn and low, so low it didn’t register as well, so she stayed at the last stop sign a moment longer to look in her mirror at Waverly’s face, and it matched her voice, an inherent sadness there not yet explained. _You should hope she’ll tell you what that means someday, Haught._ Then Waverly took a sharp breath in, and tilted her head up and away towards the slowly rising sun as their ride came to an end.

* * *

  **~ day 4 ~**

Waverly wondered if this was going to be the breaking point. It was so early on a Sunday that it had physically hurt her to crawl from her bed. Everyone needed at least a day to sleep in. But she absolutely KNEW Nicole was working today, err... last night. Saturdays were big money and so she knew that if the stars aligned, _if Nic really wants to see you_ , then requesting an Uber about the same time as she has the previous four days, would yield results. She didn’t even look when she requested the ride, her eyes squinting shut unnecessarily, at the risk she might be taking.

The app found Her Driver, “Nicole,” she sighed, within just a moment or two. The confirmation made her unrealistically happy, especially considering the morning she had planned.

Nicole rolled up alongside Waverly moments later, but didn’t get out of the car. The reason was factually based on Waverly not having any bags to carry but the reality was that Nic couldn’t stop staring at Waverly in her fitted yoga pants, a sweatshirt with the collar cut from it, falling off her right shoulder, a backpack clutched to her side, her hair loose and falling in her face as she appeared to stare intently at her phone. _She looks so different…so damn good…_ Nicole swallowed hard.

Waverly climbed in of her own volition and smiled radiantly at Nicole, so bright the sun would be in competition when it was rising in just a few minutes. “Good morning, Nicole! I hope your night was most prosperous!”

Nicole had turned around completely, her arm on the center console, her body contorted to fully appreciate Waverly’s entrance. She shook her head slightly even as her eyes trailed down Waverly body folding into the backseat, clicking the seatbelt  in place. “Yeah, yeah, it was good…good, Waverly…” she trailed off.

“Excellent! I bet you’re wondering why you’re here on a Sunday.”

_Nope. Will be here everyday you want me, Waves._

“Unless it’s a new thing, there are definitely no classes today,” Nicole supplied.

“Right, right. But I still have things I absolutely need to get done. I know you can really only get me to my first stop, but I really appreciate you being here today, Nicole” Waverly reached  forward, resting her hand on Nicole’s arm, their eyes meeting and holding a gaze for much longer than necessary in appreciation of so many unsaid things.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to…I mean,” Waverly fought against all the suggestions plummeting through her head. _I want you to come back here and kiss me hard. I want you to pull this sweatshirt off me so I can feel your hands against my ribs and your breath on my chest. I want you to tell me the last thing you ate and the first thing you do when you get home every morning. I want you to tell me_ **_everything_ ** _, Nicole._

“I mean,” Waverly cleared her throat and focused herself, “I would really appreciate you dropping me off at Berkeley Bowl and that should cover the majority of my errands today.”

It was as if Nicole could read her mind because, even when Waverly realized she had looked away, broken their eye contact, she looked back immediately again only to find Nicole still waiting, her focus solely on what Waverly wanted. “That will get you going?”

“That will at least get me…get me going,” Waverly coughed in reply.

“Okay, okay. I should get you…” _STOP looking at her lips, stop looking at the flecks of gold in her eyes, stop thinking about running your fingers through her hair and laying her down and…._

”I should get you going. Oh my god, going…going to the Bowl, I mean.” Nicole wheezed out as she turned a bright red and whipped around, jerking the car into drive. _You are such a hot gay mess, Nicole Haught._

Both Waverly and Nicole spent the next ten minutes trying to even out their breathing. Not only due to the awkwardly sensual start to their drive, but also because Nicole had very nearly caused a collision when she didn’t hear the alarm of a dump-truck backing up at the corner of Waverly’s residential neighborhood not three minutes after she had finally cleared the curb, still in her flustered state.

“I’m so sorry. I just didn’t see that truck and I know it must have been pretty scary for a second or two.”

“I mean, the truck did have one of those horrendous alarms that signal backups, but it’s like you were distracted…” noted Waverly.

“Can we be fair and say it was both?” Nic winked in the rearview as they sat at a red light. Waverly just chuckled and shook her head no, but whispered “yes” unaware that Nicole would never hear it.

Nicole’s curiosity got the better of her as they neared the Bowl and she decided it was worth venturing a question or two about Sunday Waverly. “Raley’s is really close to your place, so what are you doing here exactly?”

“Honestly?” Waverly cringed slightly in embarrassment.

“Of course, always honestly, Waves,” Nicole said, using the nickname before she could stop herself. Waverly’s eyes beamed at the endearment and she sighed knowing that they were becoming casual friends at the least.

“I just love to walk around and watch the hipsters wax poetically when they come into the Bowl on Sundays. Then I do some shopping and later I might have pizza at Cheese Board.”

“That place is fantastic!”

“Right? We should go sometime….you know, when it’s actually lunch or dinner, not seven in the morning?”

“Pizza is good anytime. Save me a slice?” Nicole asked as she slowed the Subaru to a stop, placing it in park and turning to Waverly.

“Veggie with mushrooms?”

“Ugh, no mushrooms.”

“Okay, no mushrooms on your half,” confirmed Waverly as she opened the car door and shuffled the backpack to her shoulder. “I know tomorrow is Monday so…”

“I’ll pick you up in the morning?” Nicole didn’t even let her suggest otherwise.

“See you then, Nicole.”

“You better have my pizza!” Nicole called after her, as they threw each other a “good day” smile.

* * *

**~ day 5 ~**

Waverly had intended on a nap Sunday afternoon, but after jogging through UC’s Botanical Garden, shopping, and eating pizza in Nicole’s honor, she had used a full day of time and needed Sunday night to prepare for classes. Even as she worked on history, a little side project she was helping Wynonna with in addition to her classes, her mind drifted. 

_Pizza, no mushrooms._

_Actual trivia versus pop culture trivia._

_Plays music but not loud enough to hear actual lyrics.. What is she even listening to?_

_Tenuous relationship with her mother, I think._

_Fan of flannels, untucked, sometimes open._  

Waverly pressed a finger to her bottom lip more in consideration of the way her mind drifted to lean, strong Nicole in blue and green flannel and wondered if she was Irish? Maybe Scottish… _tartan plaid looks divine on her._

She had basically tried sleeping, but hadn’t been very successful. Her mind kept running to where Nicole could be from, who Nicole was outside her Subaru, and that was a Nicole she definitely needed to know more about.

So with determination, she opened her history book with her agenda as soon as Nicole closed her door this early morning.

“Did I tell you about my side project? It’s the reason I’m also carting these history books around,” explained Waverly.

“You definitely did not,” Nicole remembered everything Waverly said, side projects not among them.

“It’s about lineage really, and how family and ancestry can affect our physiological behavior.”

“Sounds heady.”

“Would you be my…erm…test subject?” Waverly tried.

Nicole furrowed her brows and sniffed as if the recycled air of the sedan would determine her response. “I suppose so, if you’ll answer the same questions” _Nicole, you devil, that was smart_ , she congratulated herself.

“Fair enough…Are you originally from here?” Waverly began.

“I am, yes, and my parents. My grandparents are from Appalachia, though.”

Waverly’s head dove to her paper and she noted the information. _You don’t need to write this down, you’re not going to forget. RESEARCH_ , reasoned Waverly in accordance with this charade. 

“Oh? And do you know where they’re from outside the U.S.?”

“Ireland. Scotland. Scots-Irish like most of the poor people who immigrated over to that region of the South.”

“I knew it!” Waverly exclaimed before she could stop herself. The flush went from her chest to the tips of her ears in milliseconds, but there was no refraining now, calming herself before she spoke again, “I mean, red hair is common in that genealogy.”

“I guess that was a giveaway,” Nicole laughed.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Waverly asked at mile two.

“No. Do you?” drifted Nicole’s reply, quid pro quo because that’s what Waverly had agreed to.

“I have…had…two sisters. My sister Willa was killed when I was very young. I have an older sister, Wynonna.”

“That name seems like…a lot,” replied Nicole enigmatically.

“She’s a lot,” came immediately after.

“The only Wynonna I’ve ever met was a piece of WORK,” Nicole continued, not making the correlation. “She thought everyone owed her everything and nothing at the same time, and that’s really confusing for someone who’s in civil service.”

“That sounds like the Wynonna I know.”

“Was….was in civil service.”

“Nicole…” Waverly probed, trying to get an adequate response from Nicole. But nothing would come.

“My father and his father and his father before him were all police officers, Waverly. It’s part of our lineage to serve,” she explained, driving back to the history lesson at hand. “I was the only child, but it didn’t matter. Looking at my dad’s badges, learning to use his guns when I was young, always respecting the uniform. It’s a good calling, Waverly.”

“I have that in my family too, Nicole,” assuaging the tender point of how they both came to be officers. “My father, my sister, all of us in law enforcement.”

“Who would have ever thought you and I would meet in an Uber, Waverly? I guess sometimes the universe takes a second opportunity if we miss the first.”

* * *

**~ day 6 ~**

Waverly tapped her foot, waiting for Nicole. She was up earlier than usual and with no caffeine in her system. _How have I run out of tea without adding it to my shopping list?_

Her subconscious replied, _“You’ve been distracted by your Uber driver. YOUR UBER DRIVER,”_ who was pulling up to the curb. _“You’re a planner and you need to get your shit together, Waverly Earp.”_

Nicole exited the vehicle and swept in to take Waverly’s bags, three today. “Wow, you must do a lot of research for these classes,” commented Nicole as she flung the bags of textbooks into the backseat.

“Well, I want to be prepared, and to prepare the students for as many scenarios as I can imagine,” Waverly defended.

“Some scenarios can never be prepared for,” Nicole responded as she settled back into the driver’s seat. “But I do admire your dedication.”

Waverly was prepared for everything. She had to be. Had she ever seen anyone act incompetently when it came to procedure? Absolutely. She wasn’t going to let her students represent her as such. “I know that no matter what happens, we can’t prepare for everything. I am the queen of planning every part of my life to the last detail and yet things have happened out of my control that sent my life spiraling…but I can teach the recruits how to anticipate what might be coming. I can give them the tools to cope with circumstances they may not ever see - both figuratively and literally. I just want to give them every advantage. Didn’t you have one, Nicole?”

Nicole shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not responding immediately. She hadn’t seen such a serious conversation happening today. But finally she considered the question and replied diplomatically.

“I think my drive was my advantage. All I wanted to be was a bomb tech and then move up. The drive to be Chief was enough to keep me centered, focused on solving the problem. But I’m feeling like most recruits these days just find being an officer hard enough.”

“Well when you’re already lackadaisical enough to leave your car unlocked and the Corporals have to hide your gear to prove a point…” Waverly confirmed.

“Happened to a kid in my class and somehow he still graduated, but just barely. Getting dismissed as a rookie after all that training would bite,” Nicole had commented as she drove over the 38th Avenue bridge.

“The good ones make it so much farther, like you…like you?” Waverly had asked skeptically.

“I was…yes, I was a good one for awhile,” Nicole had whispered.

Waverly gave Nicole a moment in silence though she wasn’t sure for what, except that they were four days in and every inch of her craved information, details on what had happened. Why was Nic driving Uber? Why “was” she a good one, not “is” a good one? But somewhere deep inside Waverly knew that getting to know Nicole in the right way, at the right time, would be worth it. So she consoled herself and Nicole with a small idea for their future.

“Someday you’ll tell me why you’re here and not there,” Waverly assured, “Someday we’ll know why we’re in this car and not out there…”

Nicole had stifled tears on that one, but she drove on. “Someday maybe,” was her only response.

* * *

**~ day 7 ~**

By the next day, Waverly and Nicole were both spent. Nicole was picking up extra shifts and Waverly still wasn’t sleeping, contemplating the Nicole she didn’t know. Nic was doing the same, just in a car at night, instead of a bed. Well, mostly not in a bed, but she had had a few specific and illicit thoughts there as well. 

“What do you do for fun?” Waverly pondered, five minutes into their daily ride, almost to the first stop sign where Nicole had given in to Waverly’s original demands.

“The last time I was asked that question, I found myself getting married,” Nicole replied nonchalantly.

“Oh…” Waverly breathed out, “I never considered you were married or…in a serious relationship…”

“That ended a year or so ago,” replied Nicole casually. “I don’t have fun anymore. But I think you may change that one day, Waverly.”

Waverly smiled gleefully. Her new mission was to make sure Nicole Haught had a little fun…. _now how to do that?_ This woman looked like she hadn’t had a moment’s fun, nor peace, for a good long while.

“I accept the challenge, Nicole!” Waverly affirmed.

She spent the next few minutes of the ride contemplating the fun they could have. Her mind kept spiraling to the kind of fun she wanted to have with Nicole. Naked fun. Mouths open, breath short, moans and sighs and…

“Waves! Did you say the gym entrance today?” Nicole shouted from the front seat.

“Sweating, writhing bodies…” Waverly mumbled to herself before clearing her head and throat, albeit barely, “Yes, please.”

Nicole moved beyond the main entrance and slowed the Subaru down, turning into the empty lot, the lights of the basketball court indoors piercing the early morning haze, ready to meet their first players of the day. Waverly’s vision obscured by her TBI, she remained focused on lithe bodies in motion, slick and hard against each other, until finally she croaked out, “What did you do to….you know, stay in shape?”

“What? When?” Nicole responded nonchalantly as the car came to a stop.

Waverly didn’t even have a class today, but she wanted…needed…to see Nicole. Nicole who was always happy to see her. Nicole who always had on a smile and a wave. Nicole who…Nicole who made her day. 

“When you were an officer, of course.” Waverly replied gamely.

“I did general sparring and boxing. I used to run a good ten miles a day. I still like to beat the shit out of things sometimes,” she mused with a smirk, “feels good to just get that frustration out, ya know?" 

Waverly knew she was staring at Nicole in that moment, but she couldn’t make herself care. Her eyes raked the muscles evident through the deep purple, long-sleeved tee that Nicole sported today, the muscles of her thighs pushing against the denim of her dark jeans when she shifted gears and braking as she moved to park the car.

“Frustration, yes, I understand completely. Maybe you and I should tussle sometime,” she slipped coyly as she exited the Subaru efficiently, “Get some rest in the meantime!”

Waverly confidently slammed the door and whipped around on her heel, striding into the gym and leaving Nicole thirsty and in an entirely new type of frustration.

* * *

**~ day 8 ~**

Nicole sat outside Waverly’s complex waiting for her request with all the windows down and stripped to a T-shirt and jeans. The car smelled rancid and she was sweltering, the temperature inside the Subaru easily in the high 80’s when Nic finally stopped and gathered her wits. She had just spent 44 minutes constantly asking two girls, who appeared to be barely fifteen if that, to stop lighting cigarettes inside the car, stop rolling the windows down because then they were freezing and she had to kick the heat up, then please put their flasks away because she couldn’t be accused as aiding a minor with alcohol.  She let the cool autumn air drift through the car before she pulled Febreze out of her glove compartment and sprayed the entire car down. She sneezed and winced a little, but it was better than nothing. _You’re a disaster, Haught._

A few moments later, she pulled up to the curb where Waverly waited patiently. She had rolled the windows up, but remained in her short sleeves, peeling from the driver’s side to gather the three bags at Waverly’s feet today. She nonchalantly opened the passenger door for Waverly  while easily lifting all three bags, circling around the back of the car, stowing them behind the passenger’s seat. Waverly just seemed a bit stunned at seeing the bags, then absolutely not seeing the bags, making the connection while talking under her breath before she clearly admonished Nicole. 

“You don’t have to get out of the car every day and help me with my bags!”

“Yes, I do,” was the only response Nicole found viable as she climbed back into the driver’s seat.

“But….”

“No buts about it, Waverly. This is my job.”

“And I want to,” she added softly.

“It’s almost…chivalrous. No one does anything extra these days.”

“Everyone seems extra these days.” Nicole replied absently.

“What?”

You said I seem extra, no?” Nicole asked shyly, realizing she had probably heard something incorrectly.

Waverly laughed, but not at Nicole, at the notion that Nic was “extra” in any of the negative ways she could think of.  She’s extra alright…extra hot, extra delicious, extra in only the right ways. “Absolutely not! I said no one does anything extra these days, except for YOU,” Waverly responded, her voice a few octaves higher to clarify.

Nicole blushed and braked the car at the stop sign she now thought of as _theirs_. . She thought about turning, but she just looked into the rearview mirror and waited. Within moments Waverly’s gaze met hers and she smiled. She didn’t even know if Waverly could see the smile, But she could, in the crinkling around her eyes. And she smiled in return and Nicole could most definitely see that, and the slight brush of Waverly’s tongue against her bottom lip before she pulled it in-between her teeth and broke their eye contact, the tension a bit too high.

Nicole let her eyes remain on Waverly a moment longer, thinking of the silky texture of the light jacket she was wearing today and how it would feel under her fingers, cool from the autumn air and yet warm because it had been against Waverly’s body. She pulled her hand from the steering wheel and unconsciously rubbed her fingers together, thinking about how she hadn’t even touched someone who she couldn’t stop looking at or thinking about.

A car honked behind them and Nicole shook her head and Waverly giggled  when she realized how distracted Nic had become while on a main thoroughfare. So she removed her foot from the brake and the car ambled forward back into the light traffic over the 38th Avenue bridge.

Nicole cleared her throat and finally asked; she had been waiting and wondering. She needed to know. She had lain in bed, her feeble attempts to sleep dismissed by her personal demons, and thought about Waverly, big things like where she was from and little things like…

“What’s your last name?”

Waverly dipped her head, wrung her hands. “Earp…”

“Like the famous lawman?”

“Everything and nothing like the famous lawman,” she confirmed. 

“Nothing in looks, everything in law,” Nicole smirked.

“Nicole, I don’t even know what to make of that statement! Let’s not compare me in any way to Wyatt Earp for the sake of argument.” Waverly laughed.

“I’m saying you’re a fine bit more gorgeous than Wyatt Earp and I’m damn positive you do a great job in law enforcement and that would make him proud.”

“I’ve done better, but this is good now. I’m really trying to make the most of this opportunity. I’ve had such great people to back me, show me that I could handle it.” Waverly confided.

Nicole felt a lump in her throat and she didn’t know where it had come from so suddenly. It wasn’t as if she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t say her thoughts out loud either. She knew people had been there for her. She knew she could have done this, but surely the circumstances were different, they had to be. “I bet they couldn’t wait to have you and you made them very happy when you chose to be an instructor. I can tell you’re awesome at it just by the dedication you’ve had every day on our rides.”

“I used to be a little more focused honestly…”

“Focused?”

“On actually doing work in the Uber while I ride to the Academy. Remember our first ride?”

“Barely, it was so long ago,” Nicole chided gently.

“Seems like yesterday and like I’ve known you forever and I barely even know you, Nicole. I don’t know your last name either…” Waverly realized.

Nicole pulled up to the front of the Academy and put the car in park before answering. She exited the vehicle and strode around to open the car door for Waverly, who took her outstretched hand and rose up from the upholstery to meet her gaze.

“I’m Nicole. Nicole Haught,” she stated, turning her hand into Waverly’s to shake it confidently. _Breathe, Nicole. Make her believe it’s worth knowing your name for just a bit longer._

“Well, Nicole Haught.  Now that we’ve been formerly acquainted…can I…” Waverly drifted off, hoping she wasn’t being too forward suddenly.

Nicole slid her fingers under Waverly’s chin gently and tilted her head up, reclaiming Waverly’s eyes with her own. “Look at me when you talk to me. I want to understand you completely, Waverly Earp.”

Waverly swallowed hard, but she didn’t look away. This was the only moment in her life she was thankful for tunnel vision because all she saw was Nicole’s reassuring and brilliant face. And it was all she needed.

Well, that and a cold shower seeing as she had spent the entire ride trying to inconspicuously lust after the muscular shoulders and arms, clearly visible through the thin shirt that Nicole had been sporting when she arrived at the condo. And she just now realized her hands had come to rest on strong forearms, well-defined under soft creamy skin. She let her fingers trail down them from wrist to elbow as she took in a breath.

“Can I have your legitimate number? I’m sick of relying on Uber to talk to you.” Waverly finally inquired.

“You can have mine if I can have yours.”

Waverly dragged her hand slowly and deliberately down Nicole’s arm one last time, holding her wrist with one hand while she moved to yank a Sharpie from the sleeve pocket of her 5.11 Corporal shirt with the other. Jerking the lid off with her teeth, she turned to lean into Nicole, mildly distracted by delicious body heat, and wrote her number up the length of an alabaster forearm.

Waverly held her wrist a second longer before letting her fingers filter through Nicole’s. Then she recapped the pen, stashing it in the same pocket she pulled it from originally, and heaved her bags from the car all while Nic stood dumbly aside, the permanent ink drying quickly. She didn’t think she had ever been so turned on by someone taking such random liberties with her body and in the same thought hoped and prayed that this was only the beginning.

* * *

**~ day 9 ~**

Nicole was shaking her head in wild disbelief when Waverly climbed into the Subaru early on Friday morning. She was so distracted, so unlike the Nicole that Waverly knew, that it was almost disturbing. Waverly just sat and waited for a few minutes until Nicole finally stopped talking to herself, louder than she intended probably, and glanced into the rearview in slight surprise.

“Waverly! I’m sorry. I have some bad news,” she came right out.

Waverly’s mind ran wild. This was the end of their rides; Nicole was quitting Uber. Nicole was moving to Detroit. She didn’t mean for these to be irrational, but they were. “What could be so bad, Nicole?”

“Well, Waze here is telling me that they’re doing bridge maintenance today and so our route is blocked. Which would just normally mean a little bit longer trip, which I know you hate but is unavoidable. However, when I went to the alternate route, that’s closed for a bicycle tour! So now we’re left with plan C, and I haven’t driven it in ages,” Nicole confessed, holding up her iPhone and her hands in both disgust and confusion.

Waverly pulled her head down into her shoulders in trepidation of what this meant for their ride…and Nicole’s imminent suggestion, but she pushed the question out anyway. 

“What can I do to help?” she whispered.

“What?!”

“Can I help?” Waverly asked stoically, her head raising slightly from its turtled position.

“I’ve got the volume up, but I really need you to just watch these twists and turns on the navigation so that I don’t miss that one weird angled street near the Academy.”

Waverly closed her eyes slowly. Oh no, she wants me to do the one thing that I really can’t so well, especially from the backseat.

“Nic, I…I can do that…but I really need to be in the front and I need the phone pretty close to my eyes, if…if that’s okay?” she appealed. _Everyone has limitations. She’s just going to learn yours today, Waves._

“I think that’s smart, Waverly…” Nicole agreed. She unlocked the car doors and Waverly moved from the back to the front seat, taking the cell from Nicole’s warm hands, their touch lingering for a moment, mostly in awkwardness, but also in reverie.

They arrived fifteen minutes later to the Academy, and Waverly admitted to herself she had a slight headache from the constant hard focusing she’d had to do and the loud tinny echo of the guidance system. But she had sat side by side with Nicole and they had done this together. It would seem so simple to anyone else, but both of them privately rejoiced that they hadn’t let their individual limitations exempt them from their collective goal.

As Waverly gingerly handed the phone back to Nicole and reached for the handle, Nicole glided her hand to Waverly’s arm, taking the slightest grasp of it, gaining her attention.

“Thank you for helping me, Waverly. I’m sorry I needed you to make it here, when you’re the customer.”

Waverly turned her head in understanding, her eyes wet at the innate knowledge it was never going to be easy for Nicole to say some things.

“I’m not your customer, I mean I AM your customer,” she stammered, “but I like to think we’re becoming friends, and friends help each other. Right?”

“Right, Waves. Right…” Nicole yielded, a look of new understanding on her face.

* * *

 

Ten days. Ten consecutive days that Nicole had spent with Waverly on her daily Uber ride before she finished her shift. And the joy she felt every single time she pulled up to the curb to see Waverly Earp standing there, arms full of books and bags and sometimes a thermos of coffee or a paper bag of muffins, was worth the sleep she was missing and a thousand other things. She played the game while she waited each morning. 

 _What would Waverly be wearing? Was it cold enough for her down parka or just a blazer? Was she bringing the evidence logs into the classroom today or just her regular agenda and textbooks? Would her hair be in braids or in a bun or flowing long around her shoulders when she got into the car, knowing that Waverly would inevitably pull it up before going into the Academy?_ Nicole didn’t even have a favorite. Everything that Waverly presented her with just enraptured Nicole more. She could make it through any ridiculous ride knowing Waverly was at the end of her night. Even the night in which strangers had loaded a dude into a car and the address had proved a mystery. She had literally spent three hours trying to get him home, drunk off his ass, mumbling, just so she could be sitting outside the gates of Waverly’s residence by 0600. It was worth it.

And Nicole was starting to succeed in other ways. She had gone to the market; she had bought the reusable water bottle, the one Waverly recommended. She had done all of her laundry and scheduled car maintenance for the Subaru. She had actually talked to her parents again after that hang-up earlier this week and assured them things were well and she was working, no matter that they assumed at the Academy while everyone else assumed she was at their beach house in Southern California.

Meanwhile Waverly was distracted. All of the things she had succinctly organized and scheduled were taking a backseat to her daily planning around her Uber ride with Nicole. She picked out her outfits and what she needed to carry to work each day, even on the days she wasn’t actually teaching to make it look as if she were, and what intelligent and engaging conversation she could offer on her upcoming trips to the Academy with Nicole. She was becoming a whiz at the exact time to schedule her Uber pickup, getting the hang of their “schedule”. _And isn’t it_ **_our_ ** _schedule?_ She asked herself rhetorically. Her rides with Nicole Haught, who she was starting to need to know more and more about, things that couldn’t be found out in a twelve minute car ride. Waverly had timed it and twelve minutes wasn’t long enough for much of anything other than gawking and chitchat.

So it was with great planning that she crafted a valid reason to spend more than the said twelve minutes together. Something casual, they could do on the fly, at a place they were already going. Something that wouldn’t take _much_ longer. Waverly finally set her mind to it and decided that her Saturday “class” was going to become a one-on-one in contact sports.

On Saturday morning, Nicole sat outside Waverly’s until the request processed. She had endured a long night carting a bridal party to two nearby hotels over the course of four hours. It was unfathomable to her how any of the participants would sober up enough for such an event as a wedding on Saturday, but that wasn’t her problem ultimately. Had it not been for Waverly, she would have crawled into bed an hour ago and left the world to figure out how to cope without her in their service. _But Waverly_ …Waverly needed her to get to classes. And apparently Saturday classes were a thing now, even though she didn’t remember that from her days as a recruit. But Waverly had requested an Uber last week and she couldn’t let her down, especially when Friday morning had ended with, “See you tomorrow?” And the hopeful look creasing against Waverly’s forehead. “Of course,” Nicole had confirmed before departing for the day, ruminating for hours on how genuinely helpful and kind Waverly had been in navigating.

Nicole had bounded from the car in eagerness on her arrival, in order to help with the bags that were suddenly not part of the commute this morning, and just stood and watched as Waverly, clad in only an overcoat and gym bag, slid into the backseat, her face pulling a smirk,  “Are we not going to the Academy this morning, Corporal?”

Waverly dipped her head shyly before looking up from hooded eyes to Nicole, “Actually, it’s a training day for me so I need to go to the Academy, but back entrance, towards the gym.”

Nicole circled back around the front of the car, started the engine and eased onto the main road, “A training day?” she queried finally.

“Yes, you know, I have an Arrest Control class and I have to stay in shape for that,” Waverly thought for a moment before continuing, “Of course you’re familiar with that requirement. Want to spar a little?”

Nicole didn’t turn around. She didn’t even acknowledge the question initially. She was in good shape. She was prepared. She could…be off the clock and…”you know what, that sounds great,” she heard herself say, and gulped.

When they arrived at the Academy, Nicole knew this was a mistake. Everyone assumed she was in Southern California with her family. If anyone caught her in here with a corporal, there would be so many questions to answer. She coughed and cleared her throat, “You know, Waverly, it’s the end of my shift, and I’ve been up all night, and I…” she let her excuse go into the air.

“I’m small but I think you’re afraid I’m going to kick your ass, Nicole.”

“I am not!”

“You spend all night sitting in a car. I’m a threat.”

“You’re an ego-boost.”

“So competitive.”

“So cocky,” rejoined Nicole.

“Guess we’ll never know which of us is right unless you defend your word,” Waverly declared as she exited the Subaru, her hands on her hips pulling the overcoat from it’s fold across her body, revealing a skin-tight workout suit with bare midriff.

Nicole practically drooled at the sight of Waverly standing there, waiting, and her body overruled her mind, “Fine, but I’m limited because I’m in jeans!”

“Oh, I’ll get you some sweats from the locker room if you’re serious!” Waverly shouted, as she turned heel and marched into the gym, never looking behind as Nicole scrambled to lock up the Subaru in the tow-away zone.

* * *

 

Walking into the gym at the Academy was like traveling back in time for Nicole. Suddenly she was 19 and immortal. She smelled the sweat and the cloroxed towels and the apprehension that recruits carried with them the moment they were on the mats. But she moved past the open area and to the locker rooms, stripping her jeans off and pulling on the pair of BPD sweats that Waverly had thrown at her when she finally made it through the door.

Relieved to see there was no one else working out at this ungodly hour of morning, Nicole kept reassuring herself this would be at the most a minor distraction to anyone, that no one would be paying attention to a random redhead sparring with a petite brunette for less than an hour. She hurriedly tossed her jeans and sweater to the side, leaving herself in the sweats and a thin tank top, and stepped out to the mats where Waverly was waiting, warming up.

And warming up was the right term because holy wow did she look amazing. Nicole’s throat was dry and her chin probably should’ve touched the mat with her sneakers because she couldn’t help but gawk slightly at the agile, lithe woman in front of her. Waverly was twisting her legs against her arms, stretching her quads, and then bending backwards into an unrealistic pose over and over. Nicole didn’t realize she had turned her head with each deft moment of Waverly’s body until she felt a tug at her arm. 

“Come on, silly. You’re supposed to be challenging me, not trying to figure out my weird warmup.” Waverly giggled as she pulled Nicole towards her, her fingers dancing lightly against bare shoulders. “You do remember how to do this, right?”

Nicole nodded without reply and Waverly motioned her to proceed.  Nicole shook her head slightly, trying to clear it of the image of Waverly’s abs and Waverly’s thighs and Waverly’s…everything…and coerce herself into action. _Just do what you’ve done a million times_ , she reminded herself, as she lunged with arms up at Waverly, a simplistic move that immediately backfired, Waverly taking her arms from her control, twisting and locking her against the vinyl mat in less than three seconds. Waverly sighed, satisfied. Nicole tried to catch her breath and couldn’t.

“I feel like you’re going easy on me.”

“I’m not. I just haven’t…I just haven’t figured out who the bad guy is here yet.”

“There are no guys in this situation, which is kinda the point,” Waverly confessed, flashing a smile and raising her eyebrow suggestively, as she simultaneously pulled Nicole’s hand, locking her wrist, and flipped her, so that her good ear pressed to the mat while the overall force against her body dislodged her hearing aid from the other ear. The resultant silence was most unfortunate because Nicole could only guess what Waverly’s pretty lips said at that moment. She was out of breath again, and it wasn’t from being thrown to the ground. The smile that broke out on Waverly’s face above a prostrate Nicole was unlike anything she had ever seen. Waverly was beautiful and strong.  It was evident in her actions, her strength, and Nicole marveled at the way the universe had brought sun into her life after so much bleak despair. So she just smiled crookedly in response, but apparently her enrapturement didn’t translate to Waverly, because a millisecond later, the smile on Waverly’s face disappeared, replaced by a look of consternation and disapproval. Something shifted in her, evident by how Waverly shoved off the taller woman, frustration evident in her voice as it peaked several registers higher than their banter earlier, “You’re not even trying, Nicole. I thought you were a cop.”

Nicole stood, gamely trying to gather her wits, her hearing aid from the floor, and a reply sufficient for the moment, “Not anymore, Waverly,” she said as backed up slowly and exited to the locker room.

Nicole sat on the bench in front of the lockers, still clad in the sweatpants and tank, rolling the hearing aid between her thumb and index finger, when Waverly opened the door and came to sit beside her quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to be.”

“But I am,” Waverly confirmed as she shifted her arm against Nicole. “I project my inability to give less than a thousand percent onto everyone around me. Sometimes that works out because we all provide our best effort. Sometimes I just feel let down because I knew, Nicole...I just knew that you wouldn’t go easy on me."

“I’m just your Uber driver, Waverly. I’m not a cop anymore,” Nicole said flatly as she stood, turning away from Waverly and  pushing the hearing aid back into her ear. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or saddened that there was no reaction whatsoever from Waverly, who didn’t even look at Nicole trying to conceal her disability.

“Right, right…” Waverly acknowledged, shaking her head-- in agreement or denial she wasn’t sure, but finally standing, her head turning to meet Nicole’s eyes as she watched a hand push through Nicole’s hair before coming to rest on her hip in confusion.

“I can, you know, I can just finish my workout and get a ride home…” Waverly volunteered, not knowing what other option there was at this point.

Waverly moved towards the door, but Nicole reached for her hand before she could get too far away, “I’ll pick you up on Monday?”

Waverly  was hurt, but deep inside, she didn’t want whatever this awkward blossoming thing between them was to end yet. She didn’t want this to be the last thing that she and Nicole would ever talk about; how had it had gone off the rails so quickly? So she relented and shook her head slightly, “Yeah, Monday…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note: EHCon was the best thing that's ever happened to me & I basically died (special thanks to Katherine Barrell). Also I learned a lot from Emily's workshop that I'm going to try and implement eventually. I hope this chapter was worth the wait, since it very nearly killed me as well. I'm actually pretty nervous about this one, so let me know what you think? I greatly appreciate your patience, coming back to read each week, and all the comments and kudos, more than you could ever know. If you want to chat about this or anything else, find me on Twitter @comelayinmybed. 
> 
> Lucky's note: Welcome back y’all and I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. I’m sure you’re all wondering when one or the other of these softies is going to figure out what’s really going on here. Thanks for sticking with us and our awkward babies; the sun will come out, tomorrow. Oh yeah, you can say hi or yell at me on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo


	5. and then there is you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly offered a radiant smile of appreciation to Nicole before slamming the car door and marching up to a building she knew wouldn’t open for another three hours. She proceeded to make a show of becoming surprised then disappointed by pulling on the locked doors, Nicole furrowing her brow, then turning her head in question as Waverly stomped a heel in frustration before returning to the idling Subaru. She put her hands on her hips, turning back towards the building, then to the car twice, before knocking on the window. Hearing the auto door locks switch, she opened the passenger door to the front seat instead of the back, climbing inside and sitting beside Nicole. “You’re not going to believe this, but apparently this library doesn’t open until ten!”

Nicole stood in front of the full-length mirror and inspected herself.  She looked…good…she thought. Her navy button-down and dark jeans, her hair silky and in waves around her now rested face. She hadn’t worked Sunday night. She had spent all of Saturday into Sunday late morning running Uber routes, making bank and forcing herself to ignore the twinge of chest pain she felt at every slight thought of Waverly. Finally, exhaustion had claimed her, and she crawled into bed around one on Sunday afternoon, sleeping all the way until 0400. But she woke with what she might dare to call _hope,_ and she decided if Waverly Earp deigned to see her again, to request her company on their twelve minute ride, then she was going to put her best foot forward. She was going to figure out what was happening between them because she had woken up knowing she couldn’t let Waverly just dissipate out of her life like everyone else had. _That’s your own fault_ , she argued with herself, _but maybe it’s not too late with this one_.

Waverly, on the other hand, hadn’t slept most of the weekend, and it was making her physically ill. She was seriously considering calling in sick on this dreary Monday, meaning also that she wouldn’t have to request an Uber. She had wavered back and forth for over twenty minutes before dragging herself up and out of bed, thankful for the uniform corporals wore to teach at the Academy, and pulled her hair up in a braid around her face. As she was twisting the hair between her fingers she considered exactly how she could continue the pretense of Nicole just being her Uber driver.

_…and that’s it, nothing more._

_But you want more._

_Yes, and that worked out for you so well on Saturday._

_That wasn’t your fault. Nicole is dealing with not being an officer anymore._

_You know something about that._

_So what am I supposed to do?_

Waverly’s mind went blank. What WAS she supposed to do? Her daily rides with Nicole were becoming the highlight of her day, but obviously her desire for more had yielded poor results.

_Just never mention the cop thing again._

_Well, that’s super realistic, Waverly, seeing as how you are both officers._

_Nicole’s not an officer anymore…_

_So maybe you shouldn’t treat her as one._

And Waverly visibly nodded her head in agreement. That’s exactly what she would do. She would simply act as if Nicole was an Uber driver, nothing more and nothing less. But there were certainly places they hadn’t gone together yet, and that’s where this might get interesting. Suddenly Waverly felt like calling in sick, but would still need her daily Uber pickup….

* * *

At precisely 0553, Waverly opened the app and requested her Uber. Within thirty seconds, a response text that her blue Subaru would be there in three minutes alerted her. The relief she felt knowing that Nicole had decided to keep her word, to have their Uber “dates” continue was greater than she thought possible.  And now, she was going to see how much Nicole was really willing to do outside her driver capacity.

She made her way out to the curb and stood there, no books or bags, just a small purse for her phone and wallet, some lipstick, and definitely not in the corporal uniform that she had donned before having this idea.

Nicole was nervous, but grateful because she knew, no matter how often she told herself she didn’t care anymore, she did, and she had taken extra care to look nice for Waverly, to **be** nice to Waverly, because she had been a total dick the Saturday before. Waverly had given Nicole the most hope she’d had in 16 months. Waverly had given Nicole a reason to get up every morning, to start caring about something, even if it was just whether or not she’d know the answer to whatever random trivia question Waverly asked her, or that there was a sale on leeks at the organic grocer nearest to them. _What have I become?_ But Nicole had specifically rested and recouped and decided that she was going to put considerable effort into…whatever this was…for Waverly. Because it was **_Waverly_ **.

 When Nicole pulled up to the curb, she started hoping than Waverly felt the same, because something was different. Waverly didn’t have books, but Nicole didn’t care. She was in a gorgeous red coat, but it was open a sliver, revealing a short black skirt and creamy silk top...and heels…Waverly had on heels. Nicole swallowed hard, her mouth going dry, as she pressed her hands down the front of her button-down, ensuring she hadn’t creased the shirt during the few minutes the seatbelt was against her chest. She didn’t even think before getting out, hurrying around to the passenger door, and opening it for Waverly.

 Waverly sized up Nicole from head to toe with a slow deliberate gaze, her tongue tracing her lower lip before pulling it into her mouth, nodding subconsciously in approval. _It was definitely worth it_ , Waverly thought to herself.

 “Good morning, Waverly,” Nicole greeted, “You must have some serious business at the Academy this morning since you’re not in your standard uniform.”

“I’m not going to the Academy today,” Waverly cooed as she glided into the backseat of the Subaru and turned to look up at Nicole’s open-mouthed awe, winking, before pulling the door shut from Nicole’s grasp.

“Oh…oh my,” Nicole whispered to herself as she circled back around to the driver’s side and climbed inside. “I didn’t even pay attention to your destination, Waverly,” she remarked as she closed the driver’s side door.

“I actually have an appointment with a historian at the Bancroft Library in about half an hour, but it shouldn’t take long. Would it be too much of an inconvenience for you to just wait until I’m done?” Waverly propositioned.

“I don’t think so. I’m just finishing up my shift with our morning commute,” Nicole lied, “so waiting will be no problem at all.”

“Perfect. I really do appreciate it, Nicole. Especially seeing as how you’re looking as if you have plans for after work,” Waverly commented.

_She thinks I have plans and this wasn’t for her..._

Nicole coughed hard, “I…uh…definitely don’t have plans. I just thought this shirt was…uh…I mean, it’s comfortable but…”

“It looks very nice on you,” Waverly smiled in appreciation, “very nice”.

Nicole blushed but returned her smile, “Thanks…Bancroft Library it is, Waverly Earp.”

* * *

The ride over to UC Berkeley had been quieter than all of their previous drives, both a little nervous about what to say after the events of Saturday, but they had managed some small talk, weather mostly, and what Waverly was going to be discussing with the historian: subversive lifestyles of Western North America in the 1800’s. By the time Nicole was pulling into the parking lot of the library, their banter was light and a little naughty.

 “I’m just saying, what woman was writing about who she was diddling in The West at that time?” Nicole responded to Waverly’s quite astute observance that there HAD to be gay people because there had always been gay people, so surely someone was writing about it even back then.

“Did you just say ‘diddling’?” Waverly guffawed.

Nicole turned a deep shade of red and pressed the brake, placing the car in park as they arrived at the front entrance. She then steeled her face before looking at Waverly in the rearview mirror, making deliberate eye contact, “Would you rather I say ‘fucking’?”

Waverly’s mouth opened slightly, her tongue subconsciously wetting her lower lip, “Actually, I would, for future reference.”

They held their eye contact via the mirror for several seconds before Nicole slightly nodded, “Noted,” she whispered.

Waverly let out a shuddering sigh and then realized the Subaru had stopped moving.  She blinked heavily to break the trance of their mirrored flirtation and cleared her throat, “Oh, we’re here!”

“Yes, for a few minutes now,” winked Nicole as she turned to look directly at Waverly. “So, I’ll wait, but you don’t think it’ll take long since you’re the first appointment today?”

“Shouldn’t take too long at all. I’m just going to ask what specific accounts he’s aware of and what’s on-hand that I can check out to use for research. Maybe fifteen to twenty minutes?”

“That’s fine. I’m not rushing you; take your time. I’m going to go through all the receipts from last night and then I might get a small nap. Just knock on the window when you’re back?”

Waverly opened the door, exiting the vehicle, squaring herself and smoothing down the blouse and skirt under her coat. She did it slowly so that Nicole could be sure and take a look without being too obvious, _just in case that’s something she’d like to see_ , reasoned Waverly to herself.

And Nicole did look admiringly at her, assuring Waverly, “You look great. You shouldn’t waste it talking to a historian in a stuffy library at…” Nicole checked her watch, “0643 on a Monday.”

Waverly offered a radiant smile of appreciation to Nicole before slamming the car door and marching up to a building she knew wouldn’t open for another three hours. She proceeded to make a show of becoming surprised then disappointed by pulling on the locked doors, Nicole furrowing her brow, then turning her head in question as Waverly stomped a heel in frustration before returning to the idling Subaru. She put her hands on her hips, turning back towards the building, then to the car twice, before knocking on the window. Hearing the auto door locks switch, she opened the passenger door to the front seat instead of the back, climbing inside and sitting beside Nicole. “You’re not going to believe this, but apparently this library doesn’t open until ten!”

Nicole wanted to act put off by Waverly welcoming herself into the personal space of the front seat when she was technically an Uber passenger, but she couldn’t fake it more than a moment. She raised an eyebrow, a smirk forming on her face. “Is that right?” was all she could muster.

“Yes, and I just assumed they had office hours such as myself, so when James said the first appointment of the day was a great time, I penciled it in for my first as well…”

Nicole pulled her lips between her teeth, nodding in understanding, “So…should I take you home or to the Academy or somewhere else right now?”

And Waverly took it to mean that Nicole was ready to be done with her, ready for her shift to end and go home to bed. Of course this ruse was ridiculous and now she was just going to pay for a wasted trip and day off from work, unless…She had to ask.

“I don’t guess you’d be open to waiting for the library to open? Not even that long, just until the administrative office opens so I don’t have to go all the way home and come back again in an hour or so?” Waverly pleaded.

Nicole turned in her seat, her hand touching Waverly’s arm lightly, as if she was preparing to let Waverly down gently. “I’m not really supposed to stay at sites and wait for a reschedule. I was already bending the rules when I said I could wait while you had your meeting.”

Waverly looked down at her own hands, then at Nicole’s fingers treading softly over her coat. “Oh, yeah…you’re right…I’m sorry, I just…it would’ve been easier but rules are rules and…”

Nicole squeezed her arm then through the thick fabric of the red coat, “But you know, if I ended my shift and just waited with you, as a friend, well that wouldn’t be breaking the rules at all, right?”

Nicole had already turned in her seat to crank the ignition, their breath visible in the car from the chill coming in quickly at that early morning hour, her hand pulled from Waverly’s contact.

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’d do a lot of things to you.”

“For…for me?” Waverly corrected, almost innocently.

Nicole proceed in her motion to shift the car into gear, clearing her throat and ignoring the true sentiment of her statement, “That too.”

* * *

 About ten minutes later, Nicole pulled into the practically empty lot of Sconehenge Bakery & Cafe. Fifteen minutes remained before the establishment was open for business, so they sat in the warmth of the Subaru, Waverly still in the front seat and looking over the menu on their phones, both facing forward a bit uncomfortably. Ignoring the events of the past weekend was going to be hard if they ended up spending breakfast together.

“This is the only place I know around here that opens before eight or nine. They have great scones obviously, but I really love their Huevos Rancheros,” Nicole mentioned absently.

“I’ve had their Tofu Scramble a few times, and I think that’s what I’ll have today. At least we’re here first so we can grab a table near the back and hopefully stay uninterrupted the majority of the time,” Waverly propositioned.

But Nicole was uncertain that this was a “get to know each other” breakfast since to her this wasn’t part of the original plan. _Or was it?_ “Uninterrupted?”

“Yes, silly. I need to go over my notes and I guess we could have some polite conversation?” Waverly suggested.

“I can try and be more polite to you than I was on Saturday,” Nicole muttered, still facing forward, but glancing at Waverly for a reaction.

Waverly inhaled sharply and then laid her hand on Nicole’s thigh. “I was out of line and I’m sorry.”

Nicole dropped her hand from the steering wheel and covered Waverly’s lightly, her thumb brushing a knuckle. “No, I was definitely the one out of line. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. It’s a reflex. 

“A reflex?” Waverly asked tenderly.

“A reflex I’m trying to break now. Now that I have a good reason to not assume people want or need anything from me,” Nicole explained.

“Do you think I need something from you, Nicole?”

Nicole shook her head silently.

“Good, because I don’t. I…I might want something from you, but I don’t need anything.”

“What do you…” Nicole choked a little on nothing but her fear, “What do you want?”

Waverly turned her hand up and laced her fingers with Nicole’s, never squeezing, just easing into their gentle grasp. “I was thinking you could probably tell me what happened? Just…I want you to explain it to me, so that I don’t make that mistake again.”

Nicole shook her head again, but this time it was a tentative yes, and Waverly smiled at her, tightening their grip ever so slightly, just as the lights came on that signaled the opening of the cafe. “How about after breakfast?”

“Yeah, after breakfast sounds good.”

* * *

 Nicole risked downing the remainder of her third cup of coffee despite the hysterical story Waverly was telling her about a recruit who showed up to court outside professional dress code. It was lukewarm at best, but Nicole hated to waste the caffeine. She was secretly happy she hadn’t worked the previous night or she would basically be dead on her feet, unable to really enjoy her breakfast with Waverly. _That’s a lie, nothing would ever stop you from enjoying time with Waverly._

“So she walks into court...in a tank top…an officer of the law, and then argues with me about what ‘professional dress code’ means. She was in a see-thru tank top!”

“You’re not doing a great job selling me on an instructor position at the Academy, Waverly. All these recruits sound like idiot babies,” Nicole assessed as she swallowed the coffee, setting down the mug and pushing her plate away. Her body was relaxed, posture slack against the booth seat, her foot up under one leg, her arm draped over the top of the empty bench. She was mesmerized by Waverly’s bright eyes and smile, how she was so incredibly intelligent but had such effervescence. She didn’t realize she was staring until Waverly stopped whatever stream of consciousness reasoning she was rendering about teaching and just stared at Nicole for a moment.

“Hi, Nicole.”

“Hi, Waverly,” Nicole blushed.

Waverly leaned in, reached across the table, and took ahold of the hand Nicole had left resting by her empty mug. She turned it over slowly, tracing the lines on Nicole’s palm. Nicole forgot to breathe.

“You have a strong lifeline.”

“I’ve never understood that. Is it just how long you live or how much life you have? Is it quality or quantity?”

“I hope it’s both. Is it for you?”

Nicole felt like Waverly was looking straight through her. And she didn’t want to, maybe couldn’t even try and lie to Waverly. It was as if Waverly sensed it was too much, too encompassing to try and explain on their first date. She pressed on, grounding them with her hands wrapped around Nicole’s, and kept the conversation moving forward.

“Will you tell me what happened on Saturday?”

Nicole sighed and jerked her arm slightly, but didn’t pull away from Waverly’s grip. Instead, she used it as a lifeline, curling her fingers into Waverly’s and steeling herself. She rubbed Waverly’s knuckle again for what seemed like an eternity, searching for the words that would be enough without causing her to lose control or become angry. And not angry at Waverly, she couldn’t really imagine having the capacity to ever be angry at Waverly…but angry at herself. Angry at the world. Angry that they should have met when life was high and good for the both of them, not like this, not when one of them was broken.

“I got hurt." 

“On Saturday? I…I didn’t think I actually hurt you.”

Nicole furrowed her brow and shook her head, more to clear it, to be concise in her explanation, than as a response to Waverly. “I got hurt when I was a bomb tech. The elementary school where the kids got killed last year, the IED that detonated: I was the tech on that.”

“Oh my god, Nicole. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“That’s what they kept telling me. But ironically, I couldn’t hear them. I lost all the hearing in my left ear, but I am able to wear a hearing aid in my right one and it compensates pretty well most of the time. Needless to say, I couldn’t go back to being a tech. I couldn’t hear the intricate sounds of devices - I could no longer solve the problem.”

“Solve the problem?”

“It’s what we call it when we figure out how to dispose of a device safely and effectively. We are solving the problem. I actually used to think about most things in life that way,” Nicole admitted.

“Oh…”

“On Saturday, when you flipped me, my hearing aid dislodged and I couldn’t hear you. I just…you were so beautiful and strong, and I felt like a big dummy who had no idea what to do or say. Then my defense mechanism kicked in and I…I have had a pretty hard time adjusting to a life in which I have no fucking clue who I’m supposed to be anymore.”

Nicole bowed her head solemnly, unsure of how efficiently Waverly could or would dispose of their…well, whatever this was, she didn’t know, but it made her feel **_good_ ** , and if being honest was how she kept it, she was finally willing to risk something again, even the truth. Her throat was dry, almost as dry as that day she had woken up in the hospital after the explosion; the water glass from the waitress at the start of their meal long empty. She broke her hold of Waverly’s hand and  grabbed for it unconsciously, wrapping her hand tightly around it, pulling it close to her chest, a coping mechanism if ever Waverly had seen one.

Waverly moved from her side of the booth to Nicole’s, sitting down gently beside her and angling her body in the same direction as Nicole’s, which had become a reserved posture in the minutes since her admission. She didn’t take the glass from Nicole. She didn’t even touch it, letting the redhead bow it into her body. Waverly ran a comforting hand along Nicole’s shoulder, letting her fingers rub soothing circles into the tight muscles along the path there and up to the fine hairs of Nicole’s neck. Her other hand pressed into Nicole’s thigh, a slight means to regain her attention. “Nic, do you want some more water? Why don’t we go get some fancy bottled water and take a walk? I have something I need to tell you too.”

* * *

Nicole had said barely three words since Waverly had enticed her from Sconehenge to the nearby convenience store where she’d bought two huge bottles of SmartWater and promptly handed them both off as soon as the purchase was complete. Nicole had broken the seal and killed half the bottle in one long gulp. Waverly looked at her a bit in awe. She wasn’t sure for exactly what quantifiable reasons, but it was the way she had been looking at Nicole Haught since day one, she realized.

Nicole’s inner monologue since her admission of not being a fully-realized human being had consisted of primal instincts to run and cry and escape the brunette that she never really wanted to be away from. The bottle of water did its job to alleviate the confrontation of the hard truth she had finally said aloud, and as they made their way down Shattuck Avenue and turned onto Oregon Street, Nicole exhaled a shaky breath and again threaded her fingers with Waverly’s.

“I’m really sorry you had to witness that. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud to someone, that I’m broken.”

Waverly stopped suddenly, holding tightly to Nicole’s hand, yanking her back slightly. “You are NOT broken, Nicole. You had something life-changing happen to you and maybe you’re not dealing with it extremely well, but that doesn’t mean you’re _b r o k e n_." 

“But Waverly, you’re perfect. You’re smart and funny and beautiful. You’ve chosen to teach recruits how to be amazing police officers! You work so hard. I see it. I see it every day, and I can’t imagine how you are even spending time with me right now knowing how useless I’ve become,” Nicole defended.

“Nicole! Stop! I didn’t want to be a corporal. I didn’t set out with that in mind.” Waverly blurted out.

“What?” Nicole replied meekly.

“Remember when I said I had something I needed to tell you?”

“Well, yeah…”

Waverly adjusted her grip on Nicole’s hand and turned to walk in a perfectly straight line, her sight set on the impending crosswalk, not saying another word until they were at the intersection. Then she wrapped both hands around Nicole’s arm, “Please make sure there aren’t any cars coming. I can’t look both ways in a safe amount of time.”

Without a second thought, Nicole set her unopened water bottle on the sidewalk and wrapped her hands around Waverly’s tight grip on her arm. “I’ve got you, Waves,” she promised as she looked carefully both ways twice and then escorted the brunette across the street.

Once in safety, neither of them removed their hands, their grasp remaining on each other, and continued walking silently until they were at Grove Park. As Nicole turned them into the park entrance, towards the playground, peals of laughter from children on slides and swings cut through the otherwise quiet Monday morning, distracting Waverly, her hand loosening it’s anchor to Nicole slightly. She looked up to Nic’s face to see if she was sharing the joy of the youthful and carefree giggles when she she realized Nicole had barely heard them. Nicole’s eyes always set ahead, guiding Waverly assuredly until they came to a clearing, the sun drying the dew off grass from the morning. Nicole strayed them off the path and sat down in a sun-drenched spot, her hand lightly dragging Waverly down with her.

“Your turn,” was all Nicole said when she felt there had been enough time for Waverly to gather her thoughts, her guts, to offer full disclosure. Waverly twined her fingers with Nicole’s and pulled them into her lap, her body stilling before she began.

“About eighteen months ago, I was working a case. I had been tracking this serial killer, we called him 'Jack of Spades', for two years with a special multi-agency team at Black Badge Division. We’d figured out where he was, tracked him to the location and surveilled until we saw him. We were moving in for the takedown when Holliday lost him on point. We knew he’d gone into the alley but he got the drop on me when I pied the corner…” Waverly stopped, breathed deeply, collected herself, “...and suddenly it was days later and I woke up in a hospital. Jack had bludgeoned me with a brick from behind, causing significant swelling and some brain damage, damage that affected my eyesight most of all. All of my peripheral vision is gone.”

“So, if the crosswalk hadn’t been there today, I wonder how long it would’ve taken me to figure out…” Nicole shook her head in awe, “You’ve acclimated so well, Waverly. It’s like you’re not even disabled.”

Waverly choked out a laugh tinged with grief. “I can’t safely drive. I can’t be in the field anymore. I can barely multitask and hell, I was terrified crossing the street. Everything takes so much fucking effort, Nicole…”

“Right? Sometimes I’m just exhausted trying to get through the day,” Nicole concurred.

“But you know, I had a lot of people surrounding me when this happened that did everything in their power to make sure I would be okay, well as okay as could be possible. Maybe that wasn’t the case with you?” Waverly inquired.

Nicole stirred uncomfortably. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck, one hand going to the left ear protectively, her pinky tracing the scar by her eye. Waverly let Nicole fumble and twist and fight her internal demons silently. She left her hand in Nicole’s but purposefully looked forward. It was more to give her slight privacy than anything, but it hurt Waverly profoundly to ignore the anguish on Nicole’s face. The silence dragged on for longer than either of them wanted.

“I would have had people. I could have had people. I don’t know if you can tell, but…I push people away…”

“Nicole Haught, I am shocked at this admission!” Waverly mocked, chuckling slightly to lighten the tone of the conversation, but then somberly redirecting them to the issue at hand. “I know it’s a defense mechanism. It’s part of what we do,” Waverly’s voice cracked, “...what we did, to build walls so that we don’t get hurt, so that we don’t let the ones we care about get hurt. No one is immune.”

“You let them help you,” Nicole croaked, her voice breaking as a sob threatened to well from deep inside.

“Almost too much, but yes. I had to. I was always giving ten thousand percent before. After I got hurt, I just couldn’t see any way to live successfully otherwise. I poured countless hours into rehab and training, pulling Wynonna to gun ranges, or my best friend Chrissy to gyms, long after physical therapy had ended. I…I needed them to see that I wasn’t backing down, that this traumatic brain injury wasn’t going to sideline me, overcome me…” Waverly trailed off.

“And it didn’t!”

“Nicole, I’m not done with the story,” Waverly continued. “I was so adamant that it wasn’t going to beat me that I got recertified. I couldn’t even enjoy becoming an active duty cop again. There was a party I barely showed up for, a party in which everyone who loved me, everyone who was proud of me for making it back had the thoughtfulness to attend. But do you know where I was? At the gun range again, focused and determined, alienating all of them and everything they had done to get me there. I showed up but I just felt so alone even in a room full of the people who knew me best.”

“I’m always alone, Waves. I used to love the solitude, but now it just feels lonely. I guess maybe that’s why I started driving Uber. It was a way to be around people but never involved with them.”

“You’re involved with me,” Waverly coughed as soon as the words leapt from her lips, “I mean, we aren’t…we could be…I’d like to think that…”

Nicole brought Waverly’s hand, nestled in hers since they had sat down sometime before, up to her mouth and placed the lightest kiss on her knuckles, causing Waverly to cease in her defense. “Call it whatever you want, Waverly, but I really hope we don’t just have to be on an Uber drive anymore to spend time together. I never feel lonely with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nicole confirmed simply, placing one more kiss against Waverly’s hand, and then cradling it against her as she waited for Waverly to continue.

“I was on a drug raid with the same team members that had been on the Jack apprehension. It was late, we were wrapping up, cataloging the location, and a suspect who we thought was long gone, came out of nowhere and got the jump on me. Had another agent not heard the ruckus, I probably would have been killed. I dropped my guard for a single moment and it almost cost me my life and all because I was overcompensating for something I can’t control.”

“Overcompensating is probably preferable to not giving a damn about anything,” argued Nicole.

“No, it’s not. It wasn’t just me. That guy could’ve taken my gun and killed everyone on the team. I walked away because I realized the same thing was as true then as it was the day I got hurt.”

“And what’s that?”

“We don’t do anything alone, Nicole. Even when it feels like there’s no one there with us. When it feels desperate and hopeless, someone is there for you, just like they were for me. But I had to see that and know that part of my responsibility in healing, in dealing with a permanent disability, is to let people do what they could for me, and later to make myself do for _them_ what they couldn’t even know to ask. Karma of sorts, the desperate push and pull of the universe.”

“You could have been a cop, but not the level of cop you wanted to be, because you couldn’t take care of your fellow officers.”

“Right,” Waverly smiled knowing Nicole got that point from her, then reconsidered. “I realized I could have a very full life, do something purposeful in training new recruits at the Academy. I could still be an officer and use all the skills I had in the field, just in new ways. I could have a piece of what I had always loved about being an investigator and learn to live with other ways to make myself complete. I go to Berkeley Bowl and I do yoga and have a nice glass of wine with my friends on the weekend. I don’t have a car payment and I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I read voraciously and I have a wild imagination,” she detailed, quirking an eyebrow when Nicole glanced at her salaciously.

“Nic, I couldn’t stop trying to have a life. I was so lucky to be able to speak and reason and walk out of the hospital that I just pushed until I couldn’t anymore. Life taught me that we don’t always get what we want because maybe that’s not what we’re supposed to have. But I have noticed, since then, that it has given me some wonderful things I would’ve never known otherwise. People I couldn’t have planned for, like hot Uber drivers at 0600 on a crisp fall morning,” she winked and pushed her shoulder into Nicole’s, swaying them together, smiles breaking on both their faces. 

Turning solemn again briefly, Waverly leaned her head against Nicole’s shoulder as she considered, “Maybe you can’t find that? Maybe you’re just not there yet.”

With that the sob that Nicole had been choking down erupted from deep in her chest and she bowed her head, shaking it in some sort of disbelief.

“Oh Waverly, the awful truth is, I don’t know that I had that before. I was always so busy running towards what I wanted to be, what I needed to have to be successful.”

“What was that for you?”

“Ahh…I really wanted to be Chief someday, Waverly. Everyone in my family, being a cop is in our genes, and we’ve had some decorated, brave, amazing officers…but if I could have been Chief? I worked so hard to get where I was, and I got there so fast. I just could see it all coming together someday. The perfect career, the wife and kids, maybe a few political aspirations…”

Waverly raised her eyebrows, “politics?”

“I just always thought being a senator, serving my community and state from that position, would be the best way to retire out of public service someday.”

“You can still be a senator….”

“Maybe I want the wife and kids more now. I didn’t see them as anything more than a piece of the big picture until I got hurt. But when Shae left me after the explosion, it just confirmed somewhere inside of me that I wasn’t good enough. I could no longer offer her the very things I selfishly was going to take for myself.”

“You loved her though,” Waverly said as a statement and not a question.

“I loved her enough to settle for being compatible and socially viable, and we had fun together, but something was always missing with us. Maybe it was my investment because I certainly don’t blame Shae. I pushed her away as much as she wanted to go; we would have never survived a marriage.”

“But you wanted that?” Waverly dared, her heart already seizing in her chest and she wasn’t sure quite why.

“My friend, Xavier, asked me what marriage meant…as part of a seminal conversation once…and we both agreed that it probably doesn’t exist the way I wish it would,” Nicole paused and looked away from Waverly so that she wouldn’t betray herself, “but I still hold out the slightest hope that it does, and I would want nothing more than to share it with the person that made me feel that way.”

“How would it make you feel?” Waverly whispered, but Nicole couldn’t hear her. She ran a finger along Waverly’s jaw and tilted her head up until she could look her in the eyes, and Waverly immediately understood and asked clearer, slightly louder. “What are the things it would require?”

“Solid commitment, a mortgage, maybe a couple of kids, and choosing everyday to go through life together despite all the obstacles that will inevitably come,” she replied matter-of-factly. Then she let her hand fall from Waverly’s face, Waverly’s chin dropping.  She rested her head against Waverly’s then, closing her eyes, and whispered reverently, “Sweeping irrepressible love and devotion that makes me look foolish, insane at times, because I just can’t stand to survive without this person, all other circumstances be damned.”

Waverly’s hand finally freed Nicole’s but she pushed it all the way up the lean, muscular arms, across a shoulder and into the hair at the nape of Nicole’s neck and pulled her to within a breath of Waverly’s mouth. She wanted to say something, wanted to explain how her heart could hurt in such a glorious way for Nicole Haught in that moment. But she just couldn’t find the words. Not with all the millions she had read could she put together a sentence.

Nicole had meant for their first kiss to be respectful, if not chaste. She had intended to ask for permission, as if they were in some movie from the fifties, at the end of their first date. Waverly had meant to kiss Nicole with every fiber of her being since her plan went into effect earlier that morning, and well, every day since she had first met Nicole if she was being honest with herself. Neither of them could give any care as to what the intentions were, their hands roaming over soft planes of warmth, longing for skin that could barely be touched under layers of clothing.

Waverly pushed her fingers through Nicole’s tousled hair at her collar and guided the slightest tilt of her head with one tiny flick of a wrist. And she knew she didn’t pull Nicole to her lips. Nicole came willingly, soft and pliant to Waverly, her hands gravitating underneath her coat and trailing along Waverly’s ribs until they could rock her forward into Nicole’s arms, completing their union finally with warm mouths against each other, sighs after caught breaths.

Their kiss tasted like colors to Waverly. She saw every star of a new universe bursting behind her closed eyes. Red novas in Nicole’s hair, white vegas of her shy smile, and finally a nebula, the center of Nicole much more than just her buttoned-down navy shirt, blue with only its hot, mysterious center remaining.  Nicole heard nothing, nothing but the blood rushing through her body, straight from her heart up and over her ears and behind her eyes, down to her tongue as it pushed into Waverly’s mouth for the first time. And then a second smaller sound, a whimper followed their hard breaths, and after that a lingering moan as Waverly’s hands raked against the front of her shirt near her heart.

They explored each other with reckless abandon for several minutes longer than they should have in a public park on a weekday, but they could barely stop to breathe, much less give a fuck who was watching. Finally, Nicole pulled away, breath ragged, trying to compose herself, but drawing her hands down the front of Waverly’s red coat, grasping the collars even as she tried to control her desire. She opened her eyes slowly, her hands twisted in the red thick fabric, and real life filtered back in too quickly.

“Holy shit, you’ve missed your appointment by a good hour,” she panted out. “I know I should say I’m sorry, but I sure as hell am not, Waves.”

“Oh babe, I never had an appointment. This was all a ruse to spend the morning with you. I’m entirely too OCD to not confirm the time of a meeting and I’ve known Bancroft Library doesn’t open till ten since I took classes here eight years ago,” she boasted.

Nicole pushed Waverly the full distance of her outstretched arm’s length away in mock shock, “How dare! You created an elaborate scheme with the assumption I would WAIT for you, and then when that wasn’t part of the equation, that I would _go to breakfast with you_?! That’s an awful lot of assumption on your part, Miss Earp. And you know what assuming does, I believe.”

“Oh, Miss Haught, you’re already an ass, and you’ve got a fine booty to go along with it,” she sighed as she leaned back towards Nicole, pressing a firm kiss to her lips, then to each cheek, even as her hands ran down the length of Nicole’s body until they squeezed her butt slightly. Both Waverly and Nicole smiled stupidly amidst their kisses. “Besides, I should be apologizing to you, you worked for twelve hours before you even picked me up this morning.”

“Ah…yeah, about that…I didn’t work last night. I just wanted to see you, be there for you, Waverly,” Nicole admitted.

“Well at least we both had the right motivation?” consoled Waverly.

“I think you’ve been the right motivation since the first time I saw you standing on the curb.”

“Since I leaned towards you in the car in order to tell you to go the right way to the Academy.”

“The wrong way,” Nicole corrected.

 “No babe, everything is going right so far, even when it doesn’t seem like it,” Waverly supplied, placing one more light kiss in the corner of Nicole’s mouth by her dimple.

* * *

 They continued to sit in the grass and Waverly began to shiver even with Nicole wrapped around her.  The temperature was dropping with the first cold front of the late fall expected that afternoon. Nicole regrettably pulled her up from the grass and shuttered Waverly from the winds that had started to whip across the open fields of the park grounds.

“So no class and no historian at Bancroft?” confirmed Nicole.

“Not today,” sang Waverly.

“Dinner then? Cheese Board Collective. You owe me my half with no mushrooms, I do believe.”

“That sounds fantastic.”

They walked back to the Subaru, hands clasped together the entire time. Nicole guided Waverly at the crosswalk again, much more compassionate than the first time, though no less chivalrous. Cheese Board Collective fed them and then they sat at a back table for three more hours, learning a lot about each other. Nicole’s favorite color was blue. Waverly spoke three languages fluently and was pretty good at ASL. She swore she saw tears well in Nicole’s eyes when she signed over the loudly rehearsing street musician as they exited the restaurant. They took the long way back to the car before climbing reluctantly in and cranking it for the drive back to Waverly’s condo. Nicole killed the engine when she pulled up to the curb. They sat in silence for three minutes.

“Nicole…what I said about finding all the good things in life again…”

“Yeah?”

“I meant people too.”

“I know.”

“I know you haven’t needed anyone for a long time, probably well before you got hurt. But you can. You can need people and want people. They can be part of the good things in life again if you let them.”

Nicole swallowed hard and shook her head silently.

“You don’t have to do it the way that I did, but I really want you to figure out what it would take to feel whole…”

Nicole picked at the stitching on the steering wheel of the Subaru, unable to meet Waverly’s eyes, but she pushed her most desperate question through gritted teeth.

“And if it took people…a person…and I figured out who…do you think they could...do you think they would?" 

Waverly’s hand flew to Nicole’s thigh and gripped it in silent understanding. “I would do a lot of things to you,” she said, squeezing gently, a smirk lighting across her face.

Nicole cocked her head, “For…for me?”

“That too.”

Nicole released a shuddering breath of relief at the lightness that followed the dark, her heart slowing with the knowledge that Waverly was going to be there when she was ready to learn to live again. And maybe, maybe today she was already starting…

“I’m here to help you solve the problem, Nicole, whenever you’re ready.”

“Today was a great day.”

Waverly nodded her head confidently and leaned over to peck a kiss against Nicole’s cheek as she grabbed her handbag and moved to open the car door.

“Best first date I’ve ever had.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's notes: I have a soft gay heart and I'm guessing that is no longer a surprise to anyone reading this. I really loved writing this one & I hope you loved reading it. I hope it wasn't too much. 
> 
> Lucky's Notes: Guys! Guys! This is my favorite chapter. I love bold Waverly! I know Nicole said “when she sees something...” and all that, but I have a feeling Waverly is gonna be just what Nicole needs to pull her head out of the dark place, maybe? No spoilers folks, sorry. If you’re not flipping me off there already, I’m on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo


	6. two worlds collided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought you were the one hard of hearing…but did you say, ‘we can finally spend the night together’?”
> 
> Nicole swallowed hard and cleared her throat at least twice. “I mean, if that’s something you’d like to do. You mentioned fireworks and breakfast and I could provide at least one of those.”
> 
> Waverly leaned towards Nicole, her hand angling Nic’s head ever so close to her mouth that she shivered from the breath she could feel caressing her cheek, “I am really looking forward to your fireworks, Nicole,” she whispered salaciously.

It had been the best two weeks of Waverly’s life. She couldn’t help but smile just thinking about the delicious kisses awaiting her this morning as she lingered inside her condo for Nicole to arrive. A text broke her dreamy state.

 

N: I’m running like two minutes behind. Stay inside, I don’t want you getting cold.

W: You can warm me up?

N: ;)

 

Winter was fast approaching. Even in California, it wasn’t warm enough for Waverly’s liking. She needed three blankets now and sometimes a bonus blanket. She shuddered briefly, thinking of visiting Wynonna in the Pacific Northwest for the holidays, all the snow and wind sapping the desire to do anything besides sit by the fire and drink Irish coffee. The drinking was never the problem; Wynonna just wasn’t much of a talker. _Maybe this year I’ll bring a different kind of bonus blanket_ , she thought to herself as Nicole’s Subaru pulled up, and she darted around to open the door even as Waverly exited her home and strutted towards the redhead.

Nicole watched admiringly as Waverly approached then ran her hand brusquely around Nicole’s neck before pulling her down into a fierce kiss, her tongue pressing immediately into the aforementioned delicious greeting that she was considering just a few minutes earlier. “Good morning,” she husked as she ended the kiss, leaving Nicole immobilized.

“Good morning indeed,” Nicole finally responded.

Waverly climbed into the front passenger side, Nicole closing the door and shuttling back to the driver’s side, in transit to the Academy. Waverly looked so professional, so composed in her corporal uniform, but ran her hand further and further up Nicole’s thigh as the minutes trickled down on their drive. Finally Nicole laid her own hand on Waverly’s and turned it over, lacing their fingers together. “That’s…distracting, Waves.”

“What can I say? I love your thighs…my hands were cold?” Waverly suggested a bit sheepishly.

“Uh huh…” Nic allowed with an eyebrow raised.

“Take the long way.”

“But we’re already late.”

“Late by my standards, not the Academy’s,” Waverly justified.

“The long way or the ‘ _long way_ ’?” Nicole clarified. The long way being that the car kept moving somehow to the Academy. The ‘ _long way_ ’ being that Nicole pulled into an empty parking lot and she and Waverly proceeded to make out until there was a danger of being caught or the Academy staff caught on that something was up. More often than not, they were going with option two, but neither of them could seem to care. The elation of new love, of always being within reach of that person you desired most, overwhelmed their rationale and composure. Their basic instincts of decorum were literally taking a backseat while they were **_owning_ ** the front.

“The _long way,_ ” confirmed Waverly and Nic found the closest parking lot, stilling the car at the far back, away from the highway and most anyone else who wasn’t seeking out a strange car in the dim light of early morning. By the time it was barely in park, Waverly was lifting and bunching Nicole’s shirt and pressing a hand to her side, then sliding against the bare skin of her chest, fingers tracing the outline of her bra. Nicole paid her no mind honestly, grabbing Waverly’s thigh and yanking her awkwardly into her lap, the car horn emitting a bleat as ass met steering wheel.

“Goddammit,” muttered Nicole.

“Let’s be teenagers and try the backseat this time?” Waverly propositioned.

“Yeah, good idea.”

Nicole was already opening the door, and Waverly followed her out of the driver’s side, both crawling quickly into the backseat, Waverly first, pulling Nicole down on top of her. She leaned up for a second, her head smacking the roof of the car, swearing under her breath again as she pulled the car door closed and turned hurriedly to Waverly. But then she stopped, taking a breath and lying down gently, their legs intertwining, Nicole pressing her hips against Waverly’s, noticing how they fit together so perfectly somehow, her elbows supporting her as she leaned in close enough to dissolve in Waverly’s scent and touch, a hand tracing her jaw lightly.

Waverly pushed her hands up into Nicole’s red mane, already wild and twisted just from their efforts to get closer in the few minutes they had been in each other’s company, her nails scratching against Nicole’s neck lightly as they settled together, their breaths stabilizing, lips almost close enough to kiss. Nicole smirked slightly, “Hi…” she whispered.

“Hi yourself. Kiss me, Nicole,” she instructed.

“Yes, Corporal,” Nicole saluted as she dipped her head and ran her tongue along Waverly’s bottom lip before circling it, sucking it and pulling them under. Waverly tasted so good, the peach preserves from breakfast in the recesses of her tongue, but intermingled with a taste Nicole hadn’t yet identified. It was just the taste of Waverly, and she consoled herself with it.

Waverly had the same thoughts - how Nicole tasted like peppermint tea and honey in the mornings and vanilla-dipped donuts in the evenings, when she’d pick her up after classes ended. She knew that Nic wasn’t slipping over to a Tim Horton’s everyday, so that just had to be the taste of Nicole. And what a lovely, enrapturing taste it was, making her dizzy, even in this moment with the mint and honey, and warm hands on her thighs and sliding up under her 5.11 shirt, fingers splaying across her ribs and trailing up to the constricting pull of the cotton blend polo at her chest. She jerked away haphazardly and pulled her shirt from her body, tossing it to the floorboard. So much more skin and Nicole’s hands were everywhere on her, tracing constellations on her torso. She closed her eyes and reveled in their unbridled exploration of her body. Her head was so fuzzy and her entire being burned so bad… _so good, it burns so good in Nicole’s hands_.

Nicole felt the solid press of flesh against her ass, Waverly’s hand down the back of her jeans, pulling their hips flush against one another, friction in her rough palming and the nails from her other hand digging into the small of Nicole’s back. She tried to focus on Waverly’s neck and the fast pulse under her tongue as it stroked it from a collarbone up to just under Waverly’s ear causing Waverly to jerk slightly in response. It was harder and harder to catch her breath as Waverly roughly kneaded her hands into her body, a slow moan escaping from her when Waverly wiggled a leg free, wrapped it around Nicole’s hip and added it into the rock and grind they had established in sheer desperation. They continually returned to each other’s mouths, their lips swollen as they would kiss until they gasped for air, regulate their breathing enough to return to each other and continue their exploration. It was never enough and desperate groans were escalating in pitch. Nicole focused solely on keeping her hands above Waverly’s belt, though it had somehow come undone…and perhaps the top button of her regulation cargo pants.

All the lavender, honey, and peaches dissolved amidst their raw need for each other. “Please, Nicole,” Waverly begged, pulling Nicole’s hand from it’s grip on her breast, a thumb constantly circling it, peaking it almost painfully, and guiding it down in frazzled need and want. “I need you,” she strangled out.

And for a moment, Nicole allowed her fingers to slip low and graze freely over Waverly, and she took a sharp breath in as suddenly the magnitude of where they’d arrived hit her like a ton of bricks.

“Wait…” she panted, “Stop…wait…we…we shouldn’t do this.”

“Oh dear god…” whined Waverly, “Nicole…”

Nicole gingerly removed her hand from Waverly’s pants and pushed her body up off of her, Waverly’s hand falling from her ass and her leg wrapped around Nic’s hip disengaging, though through no choice of her own, as Nicole sat back on her heels and tried to even out her breathing, her entire body remaining flushed with desire. When she had convinced herself that she was in control of her actions again, she arched back down into Waverly, who was adamantly not receiving consolation, despite the soft, light kisses Nicole had started placing on her neck and cheek, and jaw, edging closer and closer to her lips. “Waves…,” she whispered.

“Uh uh,” she stoically replied.

More kisses followed, Nicole’s nose nuzzling into her hairline, behind her ear, tickling her neck, “Waverly…” she tried again.

“Nope.”

Nicole reserved the hold of her body slightly above Waverly, her hands fulfilling the duty of holding her weight, so she was left to the device of her lips, lightly grazing all the available skin of Waverly’s chest, her shoulders. It was comforting and sensual at the same time and she slowly felt Waverly give in to her physically if not emotionally. Finally, she risked more than a word.

“I want you so much, Waverly. When I’m around you, I can’t think of anything else but holding you and touching you,” Nicole paused to kiss a path up Waverly’s chest to the edge of her mouth, her voice lowering as she continued, “what it will be like to watch you come…undone…with me.”

Waverly shuddered beneath her at the admission.

“But I really care about you. This is somethin’…something special to me. I don’t want our first time to be in a car, before you go to work, and I go home alone,” she explained. And despite herself, Waverly nodded in agreement.

“Okay,” Waverly finally acquiesced.

Nicole sat up again, her arms like jelly from elevating above Waverly for longer than she originally anticipated. She let them fall to her side and sighed, pushing her t-shirt down from where Waverly had bunched it under her arms. She pushed her hair from her face and closed her eyes for a moment before one final confession, gathering her courage.

“Waves, I haven’t been with anyone since before I got hurt. It’s…it’s going to be different, for a lot of reasons, mostly because it’s going to be with you,” she took hold of Waverly’s hand lying prostrate on her thigh and twined their fingers, “I hope anyway…”

“Definitely,” confirmed Waverly.

“But ya know, also because I...” her free hand grazing her cheek, covering her ear lightly, miming the deafness since she couldn’t seem to speak it aloud.

Waverly leaned up, getting her balance even as she reached for Nicole. Her hand covered Nic’s as her thumb stroked the scar gently. “Hey, I know.  I do…you know who you’re talking to, right? I have a traumatic brain injury. What if…what if I forget how to do this?” She motioned her other hand back and forth between them, indicating everything from intimacy to their newfound relationship, but didn’t wait for a reply. “I haven’t been with anyone either. You’re right, I don’t want to do it here and now…” she paused, blushing, and then confessed, “Well, I kinda DO! Because I want you, Nicole. But I also want it to be like fireworks and seeing stars and breakfast together afterward...” Leaning up and placing a chaste kiss against Nicole’s lips, she whispered, “I know you’re totally worth waiting for, even if you don’t just yet.”

* * *

 Waverly somehow made it to class on time and the further into her day she got, the more she considered how much she cared about Nicole. She had tried to ease into this, have fun making out and getting to know each other. They did both, spending hours together when their schedules allowed it.  In between, she was always thrilled to see a text from Nicole when she checked her phone at class breaks, or during research for her projects. She texted Nicole before bed, knowing she was out on the road, working but knowing they would usually see each other within a few short hours. They had gone out a couple of times to little dive bars and off the map Mexican places for tacos and beer. They had talked about a few things without really talking about them - relationships within their family, how they had ended up in law enforcement, how they had figured out they liked girls (and guys; Waverly was just fine discussing that and Nicole had been just fine hearing it, “been there, done that, it’s the worst!”)  

While she had meant what she said, that she was going to help Nicole “solve the problem” she was starting to admit that she was getting more and more invested in what they could be together. She was trying the keep the delicate balance of being patient, waiting for Nicole to tell her more details of the explosion, the treatment afterward, how Waverly could help her, but at the same time they spent so much time distracted from the ultimate reality of their disabilities. She was coming to the stark realization that she could feel almost complete with Nicole if she gave herself half the chance, if she let herself stop trying to plan ahead for every possible downfall.

In that fear was where she found herself this afternoon. She had logged into the scheduling database and finally typed in Nicole’s name. Nothing much was revealed, just that she was IOD (Injured On Duty) and her badge number. It piqued her curiosity that the time of IOD started much later than her original injury date, but what immediately throttled her was the name who designated it:  Randy Nedley…Chrissy’s father.

She picked up her phone to text Chrissy and then thought better of it. She wanted to ask questions, get more information from the source, but she respected Nicole’s vulnerability too much to even dare reach out to other officers at this juncture, and especially to backdoor it by using her best friend to funnel information. She certainly couldn’t ask Nicole, not to do or say more, not yet. They had started at such an open and willing place after that first disaster in the gym that she devoted her intentions to keeping it pure and completely honest between them. But the nagging little voice in the back of her mind whispered that things could be drastically different than what she had been told, than even what she could imagine. Finally she gave in and opened her laptop typing “Nicole Haught” into Google search.

Her memory of that first day of April came flooding back with the sensationalized headlines splashed across the search results detailed in online news sites. Every link she clicked through had gruesome images of the simmering shell of the high school, bloody and ashen victims being carried away from the rubble. A side photo of the bomb tech “seriously injured” in the blast, in full dress blues, accompanied every article, regaling Nicole’s service to the department and her bright future in law enforcement leading up to the blast.

The blood drained from Waverly’s face as she read headline after headline. A boy had reported a backpack that when opened contained a rudimentary pipe bomb, ticking loudly and the timer, a hand-cranked alarm clock, wildly dysfunctional once he had unknowingly armed it, made him hostage to the device. When the two techs arrived, he was there with it, the rest of the school being evacuated as quickly as possible, babbling on about someone leaving him there to die.

Nicole and her team had been called in immediately and she was first down range. If there were lives at stake, the tech had to go in, no robots or bomb-sniffing dogs. Sergeant Haught had taken over in preparation to vent the device and the boy was backing away when the flash-powder incinerated. The blast had leveled the side of the gym, killing the boy and bringing Nicole to the brink of death. She hovered in critical condition for a few  days, finally emerging from a coma, the “continuing stories” reported. They grew sparse the longer the time spanned since the blast.

While the original reports had insinuated the boy killed had set the backpack bomb, Nicole clarified in her first and only brief public statement that she was sure he had been innocent and she would contribute whatever possible in the investigation to find the real perpetrator of the crime. The most recent short blurb that Waverly could find was from about four months previously when Sergeant Haught had been expected to return to the force in some capacity, but later stated she was taking additional personal time to spend with her family.

Waverly furrowed her brow at that explanation seeing as how, from what she could tell in the short time they had been dating, Nicole had a good, but not exceptionally close relationship with her family.  Dating or...whatever this was. What she did note, in every article, was how Nicole had been a star in the department - rising fast and with exceptional support. She had been promoted to Sergeant shortly before the explosion and all the reports had detailed her medal for bravery, awarded a few weeks afterward, which she did not attend “due to medical complications following surgical treatment for injuries sustained in the line of duty”. It had been a long, arduous road, even Nicole had admitted as much previously, but the constant updates on her precarious condition, whether she would even live the first day or so after the blast, how she was maimed or blind or could be a vegetable for the rest of her life were all viable options to the media until finally Lieutenant Nedley had released a statement from the police force and then from Nicole. She was on the mend and expected to return to active duty all in due time. So what had gone wrong in the months following that announcement?

Her phone dinged at that moment, and Nicole’s name appeared with the fire emoji and she suddenly realized she had been immersed in her research for nearly three hours. She unlocked her phone and a smile appeared as she read the message.

N: can I pick you up after work? I have an idea for our…

W: our?

N: ...backseat dilemma from this morning

W: I’d like that. I’ve been in my office researching, but I’m wrapping up now

N: I’ll be there in ten

Waverly leaned back and rubbed her eyes, sore and tired from the hard concentration she’d had to give the computer to get as much information as her tunnel vision allowed. She slowly closed the laptop, “oh Nicole…where did you disappear to...and are you gone forever?” She wondered.

* * *

Eight minutes later, Nicole pulled up to the curb, and nervously sat with the car idling, every fiber of her nerves on end, worried that someone at the Academy would discover she was the one behind the wheel. She knew it was ridiculous that people would automatically assume the blue Subaru belonged to her, but she also knew that several people were familiar with her vehicle, just not of her actually residing in Berkeley at the present moment. Usually she waited until Waverly texted that she was outside before she pulled up, stopping just long enough to secure Waverly in the front seat before speeding off of the grounds. She hadn’t waited this time and that was going to be her apparent downfall as Chrissy Nedley opened the main doors to the administrative offices and only turned at the last second to allow Waverly to pass by as they exited together.

Chrissy was in the midst of a jovial conversation with Waverly and paying absolutely no mind to the car awaiting her pickup. Nicole strained but couldn’t make out their conversation from inside and was left to anxiously wonder what exactly Waverly was saying with a huge smile on her face. _Chrissy Nedley probably doesn’t even remember you. It was what…three years ago that you were introduced and it’s been almost two years since you got hurt. Even then, it was always the Lieutenant that was at the hospital, not his daughter_ , she reasoned..

Nicole was so wrapped up in her anxiety that she missed Waverly opening the car door and climbing inside, dropping her bags into the floorboard of the passenger’s side, and squeezing Nicole’s knee subtly. “Hi, babe,” was all she said before narrowing her eyes in concern. “You okay?”

Nicole blinked back to present day and tried to casually deduce exactly what the two friends had discussed, “Oh, nothing, just trying to figure out if I should be jealous.”

Waverly shooed Nicole’s ridiculous accusation away with a tap to her forearm, “Of Chrissy Nedley? That’s my best friend. Her dad is the Commander, Lt. Randy Nedley, but I’ve known her since we were little. We grew up together. And while she may be a smokin, hot blonde, she’s one thousand percent straight, not that it would’ve happened if she wasn’t.”

Nic nodded in understanding, “So you two were just talking about stuff?”

“Yep, about how we’re going to get together this week and have lunch. I’m pretty sure she can tell I’m excited about new developments in my life,” she winked.

Waverly forgot momentarily that there was virtually no way that Nicole didn’t know Chrissy Nedley in some capacity. She was so focused on actually NOT telling Chrissy in the brief walk they had shared, mostly due to the newness and also Nicole’s skittish behavior, that she felt like they definitely needed time to sit…for her to figure out how to tell Chrissy she had found someone…special, even if it was brand new.

Nicole distracted her from further rumination on how and when that would exactly happen, “Well, ironically, that’s what I was going to talk to you about too! New developments in my life.” She beamed, pulling Waverly to her side as they entered the main thoroughfare and turned towards the 38th Avenue bridge, finally out of sight of the Academy.

“Oh really? Is this about how we almost deflowered your backseat this morning?”

“I should’ve never told you I haven’t had sex in this car. It’s like it’s your mission now,” Nicole shook her head in mock disappointment.

“So it is definitely about that!” confirmed Waverly.

“Yes and no.”

“Please explain, Nicole.”

“I’m going to start working days. It makes no sense for us to be on opposite schedules. And I can just be up in time to take you to work and finish when you’re wrapping up your day. And we can…”

Waverly angled her head, her chin pointing away as she peered deeper at Nicole, whose eyes focused hard on the road and definitely not Waverly in the moment. “We can…please continue…”

“We can finally…we can finally…,” Nicole cleared her throat but still muttered her final explanation, “wecanfinallyspendthenighttogether.”

Waverly turned against Nicole, her hand sliding up Nic’s arm and around her neck, thumb stroking the hard muscles under her ear.

“I thought you were the one hard of hearing…but did you say, ‘we can finally spend the night together’?”

Nicole swallowed hard and cleared her throat at least twice. “I mean, if that’s something you’d like to do. You mentioned fireworks and breakfast and I could provide at least one of those.”

Waverly leaned towards Nicole, her hand angling Nic’s head ever so close to her mouth that she shivered from the breath she could feel caressing her cheek, “I am really looking forward to your fireworks, Nicole,” she whispered salaciously.

Nicole slammed on the brakes mistakenly, overwhelmed with the thoughts that rushed to the front of her brain, jerking them forward.

“Fuck.”

“That’s part of the plan, Nic.” Waverly confirmed as she placed hot kisses down Nicole’s jawline, the car idling for a moment until a horn honked behind them.

Nicole drove very distractedly the last four blocks to the condo, the entire right side of her face damp from open-mouthed kisses, Waverly’s hand up under her shirt, trailing the full horizontal plane of the hem of her jeans almost absently. When she finally came to a stop and placed the car in park, she took a deep breath and turned, taking Waverly’s face in between her hands and kissing her long, slow and deliberately, before conditioning her with a painstakingly devised plan. She reasoned if she took breath from Waverly, leaving her slightly woozy, she would make it considerably easier to sway.

“So…I’m going to do that…and it’s going to take me a few days to get used to the new schedule. And I have some things I need to sort out so that…so that our first time is…”

“Perfect.” Waverly finished wistfully for her.

“Right. Just remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder, Waves,” Nicole reasoned.

Waverly leaned away from Nicole defensively. “We’re not going to see each other? For how long?!”

“I have to go out of town. When I get back, I have to readjust to being on dayshift again. I don’t want you to come over and one of us sleep through the night and the other one sleep through the next day.”

A rough laugh bubbled up from deep inside Waverly, “Oh there will be no sleeping, Nicole Haught, trust me.”

Nicole reached out and took Waverly’s hands in her own. “I know. I know! I want us to be…in sync…and I want to be completely there with you, Waverly.”

Waverly groaned at the selfish way she understood exactly what Nicole was asking of her, and how she was going to give in completely, because she wanted the same thing. She was constantly daydreaming about being with Nicole and it just got more fantastical each time. She was going to explode soon, but surely she could tamp down her desires for a few days. “A few days?”

“Three. Three days. I’m going to pick you up here on Friday and we’re going to spend the entire weekend together, okay? It’s going to be everything we’ve imagined and more. Please, Waverly. Please give me three days and I promise it’ll be worth it,” she pleaded.

Waverly didn’t answer so much with words as with her hands tangling into Nicole’s hair, her mouth open and tongue slick against Nicole’s immediately, pulling her as close as possible, even in the tight confines of the front seat, pushing her hips against Nicole’s thigh, one arm wrapping around Nicole’s shoulder, pulling her desperately close. Nicole met her eagerly, hands sliding under Waverly’s thighs, strong arms pulling her across Nicole’s lap in one fluid motion. They avoided the horn mechanism this time, even in their haste.

Waverly grounded herself with a hand on Nicole’s shoulder and the other pushing a chin to the side so that her tongue could trace all the way down to the edge of her shirt, the previously anchored hand dragging hard down her chest, pulling it as low as possible under she felt the soft skin of Nicole’s breast against her mouth. Waverly sucked a deep purple bruise to bloom even as Nicole’s fingers constantly pressed back against her hips in a cerebral attempt to counteract the gravitational pull of their bodies. Finally she registered the constant “oh god oh god oh god” coming in low intonation from Nicole and realized they were right back where they had started not half a day before.

She stopped then, resting her forehead on Nicole’s heaving chest, and sighed laboriously. “Three days…”

Nicole didn’t respond for a good minute and a half.

“I promise. Three days.”

* * *

Nicole considered Waverly the best distraction. She could only focus on her shortcomings when she couldn’t see or smell or touch Waverly Earp. Those moments seemed farther and farther between for the two weeks leading up to the morning in the backseat of her Subaru, when the cosmos had somehow stopped them from going all the way. And Waverly was too important, she meant too much to Nicole. It was more than a girl, a date, a new adventure. She felt bound to Waverly in some inexplicable way. Trying to reason it out was impossible because it shouldn’t be just that Waverly was patient and understanding, listened and consoled her, but also that she was irresistible, impassioned, intelligent, gorgeous in every way. Nicole swore that seeing Waverly every morning was like the sun itself rising. It always gave her hope, a reason to live.  Up until the day that Nicole had met her, she didn’t know that’s what she had been missing somehow.

Only during her nightmares and moments right before and after sleep did Nicole succumb to the eventual lie she would have to confess to Waverly should she continue on the road she was on. Working nights, driving Uber, avoiding her friends here in Berkeley, her parents in Southern California, it was all closing in on her. Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw the shell she had become. Yet somehow, she also saw a glow, a fire kindling inside her sparked by Waverly. She wanted to stoke it and watch it grow and overpower her. If she was going to get burned again, she wanted it to be from the white hot flame that Waverly had lit inside her.

And so it was, standing in her bedroom, staring at herself in the full-length mirror after their thwarted morning tryst, that she came to the hard cold truth of the matter. She had to own her disloyalties and start making things right.

This meant going to her parents and telling them the truth: that she wasn’t on the force right now, certainly not on active duty and she didn’t know if that would ever be a reality again. She definitely didn’t want to go back right now. To tell them she was driving Uber to pay her bills would be slightly embarrassing, seeing as how she was originally destined to be the first police chief in their family, a future senator if she worked and campaigned hard enough perhaps. She had to tell them she had been using them as an excuse, their home as a faux residence for well over six months. That was an explanation that had to happen in person.

She called them, told them she was taking “a few days off work” and wanted to drive down and spend some time with them. They were elated and she was nauseous. _One down, two to go._

* * *

 Waverly was deep into her newest guilty pleasure, an eighteenth century romance about a dragonslayer, when her phone rang at almost 11pm. She ignored it initially, letting it go to voicemail, but when it began ringing again immediately, she assumed it was an urgent issue. She still scowled when she saw her sister’s name on the caller ID.

“Are you in jail or the hospital?” huffed Waverly as she accepted the call.

“Whoa, whoa babygirl. Can’t I just call to check in on you?” Wynonna remarked casually.

Waverly felt a bit sheepish at her original insinuation and meekly replied, “Yeah, I guess so. So you’re fine then?”

“Well, I mean, I got a little shot and am just spending the night here as a precaution.”

“Oh my god, Wynonna! People don’t just get ‘a little shot’! What hospital are you at? I’m on my way,” she exclaimed as she jumped from her oversized chair, her feet rooting around for her long discarded boots, as her hand clamored for her purse and keys.

“Waves, calm down. You don’t need to come. It’s just my arm, through-and-through, and they gave me the good drugs. But you know those make me too relaxed to sleep…”

Waverly stopped moving and rolled her eyes, lulled into complacency with Wynonna’s explanation. “And so you’re just calling to tell me you got shot, but you don’t need anything?”

“I don’t need anything, but I wanted to see how you’re liking the new job.”

“I like it. It’s a lot of work and patience some days, but it could be worse.”

“Or better…” Wynonna mumbled.

“What does that mean?” Waverly asked through a long sigh.

“We just got funding for a new investigation and well…” she trailed off.

“Well, what?” Waverly couldn’t help but be immediately intrigued.

“We need a researcher, and a good one. A top of the line, best, smartest Waverly type of researcher.”

“Wynonna, you know I can’t be in the field. It’s too dangerous,” Waverly cautioned.

“No field work. Even if you’re close to or on-site, it would be in a completely secure environment.”

“What kind of funding did you get for this? That’s some high money…” Waverly remarked, knowing what it cost to support a team that included dedicated investigative researchers.

Wynonna pulled the phone away from her ear, looked around suspiciously, and whispered into the phone when she was finally satisfied no one would hear her, “It’s Bulshar…”

“The cartel boss?? No…that’s impossible.”

“We’ve finally got a solid lead, Waves. Real solid, above board, an inside guy even. But we’ve got to build the most  justifiable case ever and that’s where you come in. You will find everything there is to send Bulshar away for good. We need you, babygirl.”

Waverly was silent on the other end of the call for so long that Wynonna started to think they had been disconnected.

“Waves?”

“It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“And you’d put away one of the infamous cartel bosses in the world,” Wynonna reasoned.

“Where is it and when do you need an answer?” Waverly asked with trepidation.

“It’s a cross-border task force, so we’d be moving around constantly, home base close to the US-Canada border probably, all expenses covered so you don’t need to worry about leaving your job. I came to you first, so maybe ten days - I think that’s when the first funding will start and they’ll fill positions.”

“I’m not so worried about that…” whispered Waverly, knowing she really didn’t want to leave the Academy, or Nicole.

“Why don’t you think it over and come up and see me next week? I’m taking a sabbatical while we await the funding…” she clarified breezily.

“They gave you a small suspension or medical leave for whatever resulted in you getting shot, eh?”

“I mean, that’s neither here nor there. You should come up before there’s three feet of snow on the ground and we’ll shoot guns and drink and you can tell me about Berkeley and why this is the best offer you’ll ever get and how you wouldn’t dream of saying no. Okay, babygirl?”

“I could do that. I actually want to talk to you about some other things that have…er…recently developed.”

“Awesome! Nurse Helga is here for my scrub bath and tetanus shot, so I guess I’ll have to let you go. Text me when you’re coming and I’ll make sure there’s plenty of whiskey in the cabinet and bullets in the revolvers.” Wynonna rambled before ending the call abruptly.

* * *

When Nicole had finally hit rock bottom, waking up on her driveway one morning deaf from a dead battery in her hearing aid and blood all over her ratty t-shirt and jeans, gashes on her face and arms from what she could never determine, she knew she had to get control. She had poured out all of the alcohol in her house and proceeded to sit in a tub for 36 hours crying and cursing God or whatever else had left her in this predicament. She was pathetic.

She HATED that word, with everything inside her. Her grandmother had used it incessantly when she was a child. People had been pathetic, situations pathetic, everything constantly “pathetic” to the point her eight-year-old hands had balanced the oversized dictionary to find out exactly what it meant, in an effort to assure her Nana that she would never, ever be “pathetic”.

 

**pathetic**

[puh-thet-ik]

adjective

  1. causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sadness, sorrow, etc.; pitiful; pitiable:



_a pathetic letter; a pathetic sight_.

  1. affecting or moving the emotions.
  2. pertaining to or caused by the emotions.
  3. miserably or contemptibly inadequate:



_In return for our investment we get a pathetic three percent interest._

 

In definition four Nicole had found the full description of what her grandmother hated, what she vowed never to be. And yet here she was, miserably and contemptibly inadequate in every way.

Crawling out of that tub after a day and a half, she was cried out and dried out. She cleaned herself up, bought a new battery for her hearing aid, and enrolled in an ASL class at the closest community college. She waited patiently for her body to heal, pushing it to the brink each morning with excessive workouts and runs, but succumbing to it in exhaustion every night in delicate balance. Fewer nightmares the more rehabilitated she was physically and emotionally, she reasoned.

A month in, she took an Uber to a particularly loud part of the city, where construction was constant and she didn’t trust herself to distinguish the sounds needed to safely drive her own car.  When the ride home ended, she googled how she could do this. She needed a paycheck, more than her stipend for being on medical leave from the force, and a reason to acclimatize to the real world, slowly but surely she ascertained.

Nicole cocooned herself in a new world. She drove at night when the civilization she had previously known was asleep and became someone casual and new, a simple Uber driver, to the sundry patrons at night, all with their own cares and concerns, never a real question for her motives. The weigh on her shoulders lessened gradually. She distanced herself from her past life, her friends and family. She rarely saw or talked to them and then, in one moment of careless response to Dolls or Jeremy, she honestly couldn’t remember anymore, had said she was staying in Oceanside with her family indefinitely. It was just easier than continuing to come up with excuses as to why she wasn’t going out with them for drinks or running in the park any longer, or why she was sleeping when they texted her at noon on a Wednesday.

Her fatal error had been telling her parents the opposite. That after the briefest of visits, in retaliation for Nedley’s shallow job offer at the Academy that she was taking a leave of absence, she was just visiting them to cool off. No, she never even uttered the option to teach, instead giving them false and elaborate details of a new position she’d be starting soon, still a tech, still a respected officer…She was so sick from the lie that she had pulled her car over twice on the way back to Berkeley and thrown up.

Nicole had lived her entire life through the morning of the explosion at Ghost River High with integrity and honor. She felt like that had been taken with her hearing. It wasn’t until Waverly Earp told her she was still worthy of something, made her SEE she was worthy of SOMETHING, even if she didn’t know quite what yet, that she wanted a small piece of that integrity back. Try as she had to avoid it over the last eleven days, she couldn’t. Waverly deserved the truth, not Nicole’s constant tiptoeing around their mutually-shared past with law enforcement, not her weakness in regaining any life of quality after being cruelly victimized. Nicole could at least deal with the goddamn mess she had made of her life since resigning from the department, even if she could never bring back Ben or atone for her failings that day at the school.

She had driven to her parents the next day and explained to them how she had ended up leading a double-life in Berkeley and Oceanside. She expected disappointment, maybe even some anger at her dishonesty that had escalated since she had been disabled. Instead, her mother had cried at her self-imposed isolation. Her father had pulled her into his chest tightly and told her he was proud of her for owning her past and trying to right her future. When they both asked why now, why she had come clean, she couldn’t help but smile for the first time on her visit.

“I met someone. She’s going to change my life if I will just let her,” she confessed.

* * *

 “Where have you been the last two weeks, Waverly?? I had gotten so used to stopping by your office when I dropped Daddy at the Academy, but from what I hear, you’re barely making it into the building before classes start these days,” Chrissy chided as they walked through People’s Park towards the food trucks.

Waverly took a long drink of her stealth margarita, covertly hidden in her water bottle, as she debated her reply. It was her early day to wrap classes, so she had decided to hang out with Chrissy in the park, have some tacos and infuse herself with tequila, mostly to calm her nerves and definitely not enough to spill that she was dating Nicole. Since she had made the connection a couple of days ago that they were literally two degrees apart, she had been constantly rolling over the possibilities in her mind. _Did Nicole know Chrissy was Randy Nedley’s daughter? Had they met before? If so, how often, how well did they know each other?_ Then she moved into denial. _Of course Nicole doesn’t know Chrissy or she would have said something Monday afternoon when she picked me up. She didn’t deny it, did she?_

“Waves…space cadet…WHAT is up with you?” Chrissy implored, her hand swaying in front of Waverly’s face to get her attention as they stepped up to the truck and placed their orders.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Chrissy. You know it’s just…” _this girl_ her mind screamed, “this project I’m working on - lots of research. I end up staying up too late and then rushing to work the next morning,” Waverly dismissed.

Chrissy cocked an eyebrow in mild disbelief. Waverly was a planner and had been working on this side research for well over a year. It was her passion project and, while she knew Waverly was never going to cut corners, she wouldn’t let it rule her life. Usually people weren’t being kept up by their history reading after all. That was reserved for…”You’re dating someone!”

Waverly shook her head vehemently as she took the tacos from the vendor and skirted away to a picnic table, avoiding the hard stare of realization being leveled at her by her best friend. She sat down, thankful she could excuse her forced attention on the tomatillo sauce due to TBI tunnel vision. She had doctored her tacos expertly when Chrissy sat down opposite her and, folding her arms across her chest with a self-satisfied smile.

“Who is he?”

“There is no he.” Waverly assured.

Chrissy narrowed her eyes, silently surmising the deflection.

“Who is **_she_ **?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Ha! There is definitely no “he” but you didn’t say there wasn’t a “she”. Waverly Earp, what I mean is, who are you banging?”

Waverly took a humongous bite of her taco, the habanero salsa making her eyes water furiously, but excusing her from an immediate answer. She chewed quietly, finally wiping her mouth, taking a long pull from her margarita bottle, and clearing her throat.

“We aren’t banging,” she replied slyly.

“But you’re never around. Are you…what are you doing then???”

“We talk…”

Chrissy was shoving a taco in her mouth, but nodded knowingly that that wasn’t the end of it.

“Fine, we make out all the time. She’s so crazy hot, Chrissy. The way she kisses me…touches me…my god, she’s driving me crazy,” Waverly confided, leaning in,  “But we **do** talk. We just…get each other. She’s a little messed up, but hell, who isn’t, right?”

“Right…I mean, as long as she’s not doing anything malicious.”

“I don’t think she has it in her to be malicious,” Waverly assured Chrissy.

“So…” Chrissy smirked, “what’s her name?”

“Nicole.”

Chrissy jerked her head sideways, brow furrowing immediately.

“Wait, like Uber Nicole…the driver you had that was the asshole?”

“She wasn’t an asshole.”

“She was, Waves…”

“Yeah, she was. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her and finally we reconnected a few weeks ago and she’s been…”

“Taking you new places?” Suggested Chrissy with a snort.

“To say the least. To say the least!” Waverly laughed in confirmation.

“I’m really happy for you, Waves. You deserve someone that makes you happy. And I’m glad to see you putting yourself out there. Do you think I’ll get to meet her anytime soon?”

“Well, like I said, she’s working through some things. In fact, she’s out of town this week taking care of some business. But hopefully soon? I just don’t want to pressure her. She’s got a bit of a parallel history to mine and we all heal at a different pace.”

“I trust your judgement. However, if she dares hurt you, please know, I will kick her ass.”

“She won’t, Chrissy. Somehow I just know that there’s something real here and we’ve just both got to be willing to hold on until we figure out how to share it.”

* * *

Waverly’s phone rang early on Thursday morning, and she was concerned at seeing Nicole’s name on the caller ID, but then her heart leapt in her chest because it had been two very lonely days without her.

“Hey babe, I miss you,” she blurted out upon accepting the call.

“Hi, Waves. I miss you too. A lot. I know it feels like I kind of disappeared, but I’ll explain everything on Friday night, I promise.”

“It makes me a little anxious, but I know you need this time. I just can’t wait to see you again.”

“One more day, baby. I just wanted you to know I’m back in town and I am looking so, so forward to being with you this weekend,” Nicole soothed.

* * *

Nicole’s leg shook with nervous energy as she sat outside Randy Nedley’s office at the Academy. She was so preoccupied with attempting to settle the butterflies in her stomach that she hadn’t seen Jeremy turn the corner, but the squeal he emitted wouldn’t have required her hearing aid to notice.

“Nicole!! You’re back! Back in the city, not back at work maybe. You could be back at work, but you’re probably not back at work yet because you would’ve told me and you’re just now here sitting outside the Lieutenant’s office, so that’s doubtful, and…”

Nicole clapped a hand down on Jeremy’s shoulder and he stopped rambling momentarily. “It’s good to see you too, buddy.”

“When did you get in?”

“Well, that’s a long story. Are you going to be around in half an hour or so? I need to sort of explain a few things.”

“Yep, I am. I will be. I can definitely do that. Just text me.”

“I will do that and we’ll go get a bite to eat. Sound good?”

“Sounds great. You look good, Sergeant Haught. I’m happy to see you back here.”

“Not back here, Jeremy, but definitely back in Berkeley,” she corrected as Nedley opened the door and motioned her inside.

* * *

Chrissy stood outside the administrative offices waiting for Waverly to gather her books and gym bag. They were going to a movie and then dinner where she was planning on getting a lot more details on this girl who had appeared out of thin air but for whom Waverly was obviously falling hard. She had shied away from Chrissy’s questions at lunch on Wednesday, mostly giving obtuse answers such as “we’re about the same age” or “her family lives in Southern California” and finally “she’s a lesbian, not a unicorn, Chrissy!” which had basically ended the investigative Q&A to her disapproval. Tonight gave her a second opportunity to figure out who exactly had the magical powers to enrapture Waverly Earp for the first time since…well, she didn’t know that Waverly had ever been truly enraptured before, now that she thought about it.

Waverly rounded the corner, her hands on the rough fabric cubicle until she caught sight of Chrissy and moved towards her directly. “I’m just going to change out of this and then we can go. Have you thought about dinner?”

“Well, has the new girlfriend taken you to any great places lately?” Chrissy probed.

“She’s not my girlfriend….yet…and we went to a great little bistro a week or so ago that’s close to the theater. Want to try that?” Waverly retorted tranquilly.

“Yet…but soon. When is she due back in town anyway?”

“She got back in this morning, but she’s still working on some things, so we won’t see each other until tomorrow night.”

“So this is just a Distraction Dinner and Movie?” Chrissy analyzed.

“I really want to see the movie and if I went with Nicole, we’d just be making out the entire two hours, so this is actually the opposite of a distraction,” Waverly justified.

Chrissy shook her head at the light defense Waverly had offered, “I guess that’ll do,” she acquiesced as the brunette entered the locker rooms.

* * *

Nicole felt like a weight had been lifted as she sat and confessed to her mentor what had happened. Randy Nedley was the best of the best and Nicole had always admired his ability to see the truth amidst the chaos. So it was much more worrisome to her before sitting down in his office that he hadn’t seemed to notice she wasn’t actually in Oceanside whenever they had talked over the last several months.

“Nicole, I knew you were in Berkeley. Hell, by the second time I called your parents and they didn’t understand why I was making sure you got your medical leave paperwork, I knew you had never gone to visit them.”

“Then why didn’t you call me on it, Sir?” Nicole asked, mystified.

“Kid, you got hurt real bad. I let you hold on to the idea that you might make it back, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Even after the doctors told you that the hearing was gone permanently, I knew somewhere inside you had the strength to come out of this and still have a full life, a distinguished career. You’re a goddamn hero, Haught.  I just wanted you to see for yourself that you could still be a great officer. You’re smart and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you’ve always had a heart for this community. We would be a better department to have you back with us.”

Nicole sat in stunned silence for a few moments. It still felt foreign to be called a hero. She had let a child die that day and she would never feel it worthy of heroism. She barely felt worthy of the life she had been returned to afterward. No, she didn’t feel worthy at all when she was honest with herself. But that was something she couldn’t change; all she could do now was try to rectify her life for - someone to do right by.

“Lieutenant. I can’t come back. I’m not ready. I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready. I owed you an apology for misleading you and I want you to know, I’m a better person for having you as a leader, a friend, someone who has always gone to bat for me.”

“And I’ll go to bat for you again, Haught, whenever you need me.” he gruffly validated.

Nicole stood then and saluted her commanding officer, a quiet reverence between them, and left the old man to ponder how long it would take to convince Nicole Haught that she would still be a damn fine police officer.

* * *

Jeremy was answering Nicole’s text message that she was ready for dinner when he zigzagged into Chrissy Nedley outside the locker room. They collided and dropped their phones, both apologizing for nothing but haphazard distraction.

“I’m so sorry, I was just confirming dinner with Nicole and letting her know I’m down this way instead of in the lab,” Jeremy related.

“I’m waiting on Waverly to go to dinner too. Wait, did you say Nicole?” Chrissy probed.

“Yeah, Nicole Haught. She’s a bomb tech. I mean she was, but now she’s not, but she might be coming back to teach or something, I don’t know,” he rambled as his phone dinged with confirmation.

“What about Nicole?” Waverly challenged as she emerged from the locker room, in plain clothes now, ready to head out with Chrissy until she heard that familiar name.

“Nicole Haught,” Jeremy stated again, cut off from his subsequent ramble by Nicole herself opening up the side door into the hallway where she had texted she would meet him.

“Nicole!” Jeremy shouted.

 

“Nicole?” Chrissy appraised.

 

“Nicole…” Waverly expelled with a sharp breath.

 

 

“Waverly,” Nicole froze, then asserted, “Waverly, I can explain.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note: Forward momentum is important, right? Thank you all for reading week after week and your incredible comments which keep me at this writing thing even when it's really hard (along with Lucky's constant guidance, encouragement and well...there's not much she doesn't do❤️). If you want spoilers (sometimes) and to yell at me more for this cliffhanger, you can find me on Twitter @comelayinmybed.
> 
> Lucky's Note: Dear readers - For whatever reason, the entire time we were working on this chapter Climb kept telling me “I hate this chapter.” Well listen, I love this chapter. I understand that sometimes big chunks of background story can be overwhelming, but we need to get through this with Nicole so that she can heal…with or without Waverly. Sorry for the cliffhanger; blame that on Climb. Feel free to hit me up to discuss this fic (or my others) or just say hey on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo


	7. shotguns & barbed wire fences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...Speaking of the task force, have you thought any more about my offer?”
> 
> Waverly twined the hair at her shoulder around her finger tightly before deciding on an answer for Wynonna. “Actually, I think with classes ending, it might be the perfect time. How about you let them know I’ll be up that way and we can sit down and discuss options?”

“Nicole…” Waverly expelled with a sharp breath.  
  
“Waverly,” Nicole froze, then asserted, “Waverly, I can explain.”  
  
Waverly looked back and forth between Nicole and Jeremy and Chrissy trying to make sense of what she had just walked in to. She cocked her head and furrowed her brow and then went with the most likely explanation, “Nicole, are you picking Jeremy up? I didn’t think you were driving this week.”  
  
“Picking me up? I mean, we can take your car to dinner,” Jeremy reasoned.  
  
“No, I came to talk to Nedley.”  
  
“You came to talk to me? We haven’t even seen each other in what, two years, Nicole?” Chrissy shook her head confused.  
  
“No, Lieutenant Nedley.”  
  
“To get your job back. Not your tech job, the teaching job? Man, I was hoping that’s why you’re here. It’s just so good to have you back in town!” Jeremy rambled.  
  
“Back in town? What teaching position? Nicole, what’s going on?” probed Waverly.  
  
“Wait, Nicole Haught is Uber Nicole??” Chrissy speculated, making the connection, her fingers straying between Nicole and Waverly.  
  
Waverly closed her eyes and pushed her palm hard against her forehead, sighing loudly. “Everyone stop talking for just a minute,” she instructed, “except for you,” pointing to Nicole, “you better tell me what the fuck is going on.”  
  
Nicole took a deep breath in, her mind running a million miles a second trying to come up with something, anything sufficient, to convince the three people in front of her that she was atoning for the past six months.  
  
“You know, I think, maybe you and I should have dinner another time. You just got back into town and talked to Nedley and I’m sure you’ve got a lot going on; it seems you have a lot going on,” offered Jeremy, turning slowly towards the door through which Nicole had just entered.  
  
“Thanks, Jer…” Nicole croaked.  
  
Waverly turned to Chrissy at the same time. “Can you wait in the car for me? I won’t be but a few minutes.”  
  
“Are you sure, Waves?”  
  
“It’s fine, Chrissy. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding. I’ll be out in five.”  
  
Chrissy followed Jeremy out, leaving the two alone in silence. A beat passed before Waverly crossed her arms defensively, her shoulders sinking in a bit.  
  
“Why does Jeremy think you haven’t been in town? Besides the trip you said you were taking earlier this week.”  
  
“I…I told everyone I knew, at the Department, my friends, coworkers…I told them I was living down in Oceanside,” Nicole whispered regretfully.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“When the specialist told me he couldn’t do any more to save my hearing, I knew that I’d never be a bomb tech again. Five surgeries and rehab and all I ever got back was about 43% in my right ear. The hearing aid helps a lot, but…well, you know, I can’t do the job anymore.”  
  
Nic swallowed hard and looked into Waverly’s eyes, trying to convey that she was being truthful here and now, even if she had been omitting important information since they had met. “So when the Lieutenant offered me a teaching position at the Academy, I couldn’t…I wasn’t ready to accept my failures…”  
  
Waverly choked a sob at that point and shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh, so that’s what you think this is? Me accepting my failures, becoming an instructor. Let me guess, they wanted you to teach Unusual Occurrences?”  
  
Nicole shook her head in confirmation. “But Waverly, that’s not…it was never….I had no idea you were the one who had agreed to fill the position when I declined it. You know I don’t think that you’re a…”  
  
“You can say ‘failure’, Nicole.”  
  
“But you’re not, Waverly. You know that I admire you. You know that I just want to…” Nicole couldn’t say it.  
  
“Want to what?” Waverly snarled.  
  
“I have spent the last week trying to make everything right, Waverly. I went to see my parents in Oceanside and told them I had lied, that I wasn’t on the Force any longer, that I was driving Uber. I told them everything, I told them about you,” Nicole confides.  
  
“You told your parents about us?” Waverly smiled slightly despite her disbelief that this conversation was happening.  
  
“Yeah,” Nicole grinned in acknowledgment, “that I found someone that was going to change my life. I just…Waverly, I never thought of the consequences of a little lie here and there. I told my parents one thing, I told my friends another. I never had to see either one of them by working Uber at night. It was just easier to not have to fulfill all their expectations any longer. I knew I was never going to be able to come back. I was just trying to survive without anything that mattered…until I met you.”  
  
“But you thought survival was pushing everyone away that cared about you, Nicole, everyone that could help you,” Waverly bristled. “That day in the park, realizing how _b r o k en_ you admitted you felt, how I didn’t see how you could be anything more than lost, that you just needed someone to guide you to the light…”  
  
“That **_is_ ** what I need, Waverly!” Nicole interrupted desperately.  
  
“No, you need for people to allow you to escape the reality that this is your life now, Nicole. I thought,” Waverly laughed coldly, “I thought you needed patience and time and understanding. I thought you needed to see that you could be loved for who you are now. But all you wanted was someone who didn’t know what happened to you, someone who wouldn’t expect you to be the kind of person you were before this happened, who I saw deep inside of you from the beginning, I thought - strong and loyal and true.”  
  
“I _am_ that person, Waverly.”  
  
“No, you were right, that day in the gym. You’re not who you used to be, Nicole. You’re just an Uber driver now.” Waverly dictated, her look of dismissal piercing Nicole’s heart.  
  
Waverly finally looked away, proceeding to march past Nicole, who held her hand out and touched Waverly’s arm desperately, “I’m sorry, Waves. I meant to fix this.”  
  
“You can’t fix betrayal when that’s where you start, Nicole. When I see that you’ve lied to every single person that cared about you, how can I ever trust you?”  
  
Waverly pushed the door open wide and strode outside, letting it slam heavily, the sound ricocheting down the empty hallway, causing Nicole to jump.

* * *

Waverly spent the evening at the gun range. She had met Chrissy in the parking lot and cancelled their dinner. Chrissy was worried, but understanding, saying she’d expect a call later on in the evening or tomorrow and she would do whatever she could for Waverly.  
  
Waverly had decided during her Uber trip to the range that she definitely wouldn’t be talking to anyone about this ridiculousness. It had been two weeks and that was that. She kept repeating it now, even as she repositioned herself on the ground, the M16A1 rifle secure against her chest, the sight right out of her line of vision, twisting her head down, as she fired twenty rounds, pushed the magazine release, flipped the rifle sideways, and slapped in a new one, her thumb reddened from the repetitive reloading.  
  
She let the melodic click spring soothe her as she controlled her breathing, lining up the iron sight for a magazine, and then laser for the next. Totaling the hours she had spent on this after her TBI was the one thing Waverly had never allowed herself to do. Anyone that watched from afar would never know she had tunnel vision-- and that was the point. But the focus to control the switch-off required at recertification was, truth be told, one of her greatest triumphs. She always went to this gun when she couldn’t handle anything else, as if tackling something mechanically difficult would replace the emotional clusterfuck in her heart.  
  
While Waverly reasoned it had only been two weeks since she and Nicole had admitted their feelings for each other, she circled back to the fact that she had just confirmed to herself on Monday, it was possibly the best two weeks of her life. In every way that Nicole had presented herself she had been warm and loving, kind, thoughtful, attentive. And the spark that ignited between them was undeniable, even in the midst of the turmoil over Nicole’s issues, their stop and start initially, even that first Uber ride; it couldn’t be denied. _I can’t believe we never even slept together…_ _  
_  
_“But I really care about you. This is somethin’…something special to me.”_ echoed in Waverly’s memory.  
  
Waverly realized she had stopped shooting the rifle, lost in a haze of reminiscence and confusion.  She reset and began firing again, groaning in frustration, holding back what she really felt from ever leaving her mind.

* * *

Nicole paced in her kitchen, gulping down her fourth water bottle in fifteen minutes, crushing the cheap plastic in her hands and slamming it down on the countertop. The notification light flashed on her iPhone and she lurched, praying against all hope it was Waverly. The sudden movement sloshed the considerable amount of water in her stomach and made her gag. It was either that or the message from Jeremy that appeared in the preview of her lock screen.  
  
**Waverly didn’t leave with Chrissy, but she didn’t leave with you either. Are you two okay?**  
  
If Waverly hadn’t gone with Chrissy, where was she? At least with Chrissy, Nicole knew Waverly was safe from doing anything irrational. _You’re the irrational one, Nicole_ .  
  
“UGH!” Nicole yelped in frustration, at nothing. She picked up the phone to respond to Jeremy.  
  
N: How do you know she didn’t leave with Chrissy?  
J: I was sitting in my car and saw her come out and talk to Chrissy and then Chrissy hugged her and left in her Volvo.  
N: Why were you sitting in your car? You know, never mind. Just…how did she look Jeremy?  
J: She was distraught, Nic. I didn’t even know you knew Waverly Earp.  
N: We’re sorta…idk…dating.  
J: ???  
N: I guess we “were” because she was really mad at me when she left.  
J: How long have you been dating? I mean I didn’t know you two were seeing each other before you left for Southern California last spring.  
N: Yeah, about that…I was going to tell you tonight at dinner.  
J: You weren’t really in Southern California. I know.  
N: DID EVERYONE KNOW?  
J: Everyone but Waverly apparently.  
  
“Goddammit,” Nicole squawked, slamming her phone down on the counter again and grabbing another water. She stared for an extra minute into the fridge secretly thankful there was nothing harder in there since she had been gone this week. She didn’t need the temptation to screw this up anymore than she already had.

* * *

Waverly had faced the cold truth of indomitable circumstances for the first time when her father and eldest sister had been killed by a drunk driver. The driver had been her father, Ward, but that did little to assuage her of the randomness she felt permeating throughout her childhood beyond that point. Being deserted by her mother as a toddler and jostled between her family members, finally ending up at her Aunt Gus and Uncle Curtis’s place a year or so after the crash, she had come to accept that if it was to be controlled, she would find a way, a means.  
  
By the time Waverly was in her early teens, she had crafted a genius solution to every fractious element she encountered. She was a planner; she lauded herself on having precise steps and efficient resolutions. It was what let her to be a researcher for BBD, a Special Agent, who was always three steps ahead of “prepared”. Being ready had never let her down until that day in the alley when Jack nearly killed her. She had punished herself deeply for a long time for being so human, so fallible, and probably always would in small ways.  
  
It was with that same sense of humanity that she ached at the error she felt in allowing Nicole into her life so willingly. How had a stranger, albeit a gorgeous, warm, magnetic stranger, seamlessly filled her thoughts and motives for well over a month now? She had allowed herself to wait, probably for the first time in her life, for Nicole to tell her the full narrative. She had trusted Nicole to share with her everything when she was ready. They had easily opened up to each other over the many car rides, their 24 minutes each day burgeoning with silly and sentimental knowledge every day. Not once had they even been cross with each other; sometimes terse or wary, but never angry or hurtful. Waverly shook her head in disbelief and reloaded her Remington 870.  
  
_It’s not a big deal. It was just that she wasn’t where she said she was._ _  
_ _She lied to everyone who cared about her._ _  
_ _Not you._ _  
_ _Lie by omission._  
  
Waverly fired the shotgun again in rapid succession, combat reloading time after time, ripping the target to shreds with each subsequent blast. She thanked whatever force had led her towards law enforcement because here she had to focus on the task at hand, no planning beyond this moment, this breath.  
  
She felt Nicole’s breath on her neck, the shell of her ear, her shoulder. She never had to see what Nicole was doing for it to feel so damn good, how it would have soothed the bruise she was earning from the repeated kick of the shotgun this afternoon. The shuddering bang of each shot, the boom of each rack slide now submerging beneath the moan deep in her throat at the thought of never having been with Nicole Haught. How today would have been the day…  
  
She was barely focused at this point. The rudimentary brutal efficiency of the shotgun allowed her to fire without sighting, and soothed her with the hard force of the gunshot, a pulse of blood from her heart and away from her head.  
  
**_BANG_ ** _rack slide_ **_BOOM_ **  
  
She never planned on this, and especially not on needing Nicole in every way that she so desperately did.

* * *

Nicole waited 36 hours before she called Waverly. It was 0800 on Saturday morning and she couldn’t resist any longer. The phone rang one and a half times before Waverly had obviously sent it to voicemail.  
  
“Waverly…I miss you. Please just let me explain.”  
  
She waited four hours. At lunch, she knew Waverly was probably running or shopping or out with friends, so she expected voicemail this time.  
  
“Hi Waverly. I wish I could see you. Wish that we could just talk. Please call me back when you’re ready.”  
  
Nicole couldn’t work. She could barely focus on anything. She had punished herself into utter exhaustion in her makeshift basement gym on Friday. Every knuckle bloodied by the end, even through tape, and she relished the pain. It was a slight distraction to her complete failure. How had she ended up here yet again? And so quickly. _I want a drink…_

  
But she didn’t have one. She consoled herself with the slightest hope that this was salvageable. Saved only by her continuing in her righteous efforts of self-correction.  
  
She waited again as Waverly’s line rang three times, expecting to hear the voicemail greeting pickup when Waverly blurted over the line, “Stop calling me, Nicole.”  
  
“Waverly,” she exhaled, initially just grateful to hear her actual voice on the line.  
  
“Stop. Calling. Me. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”  
  
“I can wait. I will wait. A week? Two weeks? Tell me when I can call you again. Or come by. I can take you to work, just like always,” Nicole spewed ideas as quickly as they entered her head, not parsing them out with any gumption.  
  
“No, absolutely not,” scoffed Waverly.  
  
“I won’t even say anything in the car. We can just ride together.”  
  
“Nicole…” but Waverly caught herself, Nicole could hear it in the sharp intake of breath, “I think it’s best we don’t see each other anymore.”  
  
And she didn’t wait for Nicole’s reply, the dead silence of the call disconnected before that was ever an option.

* * *

The phone rang literally thirty seconds later and Waverly shouted into the phone before realizing it wasn’t Nicole. “I’m not going to tell you again!”  
  
“Babygirl, if you told me the first time, I probably wasn’t paying attention,” admitted Wynonna.  
  
Waverly sighed and sat down on the sofa wearily, pushing her shoes off and leaning back against the cushions, her eyes closing. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”  
  
“Telemarketer or should I be heading south to kick someone’s ass? Is that idiot chump at your office harassing you?”  
  
“Champ. Please, he’s white noise at best. Nah, I just had a rude…telemarketer, like you said,” she lied.  
  
“Block them when we’re done here,” suggested Wynonna. “So are you coming up soon? There’s some really nice foliage on the drive from what I hear…” she casually tempted.  
  
“Did you just say ‘foliage’? You know, don’t answer…but yes, I’m actually planning on coming up next week. Classes are wrapping on Wednesday so I figured I’d come up for a long weekend. Will that work?”  
  
“That sounds great, Waves. I have to go into the city for some meetings on the new task force, but I should be back on Friday night at the latest. I’ll make sure the fridge and pantry are stocked. Speaking of the task force, have you thought any more about my offer?”  
  
Waverly twined the hair at her shoulder around her finger tightly before deciding on an answer for Wynonna. “Actually, I think with classes ending, it might be the perfect time. How about you let them know I’ll be up that way and we can sit down and discuss options?”  
  
“Hell yeah!! I knew it! This is going to be awesome. I can’t wait to have you back on the team, babygirl!” Wynonna whooped on the other end of the line. “I’ll have them get in touch with you this week.”

* * *

Nicole had only gone to the Academy that morning because she was sure this was an offsite day for training for Waverly. She didn’t want Waverly to think she was forcing herself into her workplace, a safe haven of sorts, Nicole assumed.  But she needed information and this was where she had to plead her case.  
  
“You see, sir, I just need to talk to Chrissy and explain what happened and I know she’ll talk to Waverly and…”  
  
“Chrissy would never ask Waverly to do anything that would possibly hurt her.”  
  
“I’m not going to hurt her, sir.”  
  
“You already have, Haught. I just don’t know why you thought it wasn’t important to tell her everything from the get-go. It’s not like you.”  
  
“I know, Lieutenant. It wasn’t who I used to be….It’s not who I am, who I can be again,” she stuttered, trying to find her footing,  “I want to be that person for Waverly. But I have to have the chance.”  
  
Randy Nedley ambled over to the window behind his desk and looked out on the field below where recruits practiced field maneuvers. He placed his hands on his duty belt, and then moved to scratch his chin absently.  
  
“Waverly Earp is about the best damn corporal we’ve had come through in a decade. Not only that, she gave up a distinguished career with Black Badge to come teach here. I’ve spread her thin with too many classes, but she’s still posting the highest class grades in four years. And that’s just her professional life. She and my daughter have been best friends for over a decade. You can’t come in here and tell me something I don’t already know about her, Haught.”  
  
Nedley bent his head a bit to see if Nicole had a response and when she did not, he counted it towards her hearing deficit and not that she truly had nothing to offer more than hopefully her word, which she had already given, that he would have to trust.  
  
“Chrissy works over at One Medical downtown. She’ll be going to lunch in about forty-five minutes.”  
  
Nicole stood hastily from the chair in front of Nedley’s desk and turned to the door, “Thank you sir, I…”  
  
“Nicole, I have to rescind my offer for you to be an instructor here next semester. But I do wish you well with Waverly.”  
  
Nicole nodded silently. “Yes, Lieutenant. I understand. I appreciate this last gesture of goodwill on your part.”

* * *

When Chrissy looked up from her phone and noticed Nicole leaning against the car, she snorted her ridicule, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  
  
“Chrissy, please. I need Waverly to understand what really happened,” Nicole began.  
  
“Oh and what’s that?”  
  
“I had created a situation…”  
  
“You lied.”  
  
“I had created a situation in which I could seek survival…” but Nicole looked up to see the incredulous response on Chrissy’s face, “I lied to everyone I know and loved because it was easier than explaining.”  
  
“Obviously you know that’s not a trait most people seek in a partner, so why would you ever consider it something that would be okay for Waverly? For _Waverly_ , who has never done anything but offer you compassion and understanding.”  
  
“I honestly never thought it would matter until the day I met her. I never even thought I’d have someone I wanted to be with. I knew that cutting myself off from everyone was hurtful, but it was the only way I knew how to cope with not being good enough anymore.”  
  
“Who ever told you that you weren’t good enough, Nicole? Did Daddy ever once say you had failed him?”  
  
“Well, no, but I…”  
  
“You got hurt. You were doing your job and you got hurt.”  
  
“It wasn’t being hurt. I failed. I killed a kid, Chrissy,” Nicole winced as she finally uttered the bitter truth.  
  
“Nicole Haught, you did NOT kill anyone. The person that planted the bomb killed that child and they almost killed you. Do you have any idea how many people in this city asked Dad about you? To this day, they want to know how you are, if you’re okay.”  
  
“I’m not okay, Chrissy.”  
  
“Well, no shit,” Chrissy laughed through the tears pricking the corners of her eyes, as she came to lean against the Volvo beside Nicole.  
  
“Until I met Waverly, I knew how bad I was…I just didn’t care.”  
  
“Waverly has survived a lot of things. And she will surely survive you, but if I thought you could make her happy…”  
  
Nicole bolted off the car and turned to face Chrissy, “I would do everything in my power to make her happy. Anything and everything.”  
  
“Nicole, I don’t think you understand. Sure Waverly made a miraculous recovery from her attack, but it wasn’t the first time she’s cheated death.”  
  
Nicole looked at Chrissy quizzically. “There was something else, before this, when she was an agent?”  
  
“No, Nicole. Waverly was in a car accident when she was little. Her father flipped the car and killed her sister, Willa, instantly, but Waverly was somehow uninjured, just cuts and bruises. She sat dutifully by Ward’s bedside for two days and when he woke, she only asked him what happened. He denied being drunk despite all the empty bottles the police had found in the car. He blamed Waverly for distracting him the night of the accident and later went into cardiac arrest. She knew deep down that he was lying, but you can’t convince your eight-year-old heart that your parent would be so callous. So she just let everyone lie to her for years after that too. Her sister, Wynonna, had a real hard time. She wasn’t old enough to be Waverly’s guardian and they didn’t do well at her aunt and uncle’s place together. Wynonna was in and out of juvy and bolted when she was sixteen. She was gone a decade, always lying to Waverly about how she’d be home next Christmas.”  
  
“Jesus…”  
  
“All I’m saying is, Waverly has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met because she’s forgiven everyone for lying to her. Wynonna came back a few years ago and recruited Waverly into Black Badge after she got her master’s degree. Working in close quarters seemed to heal a lot that time couldn’t previously. I don’t know that she ever forgave Ward. I really hope not because that prick didn’t deserve it.

I know you didn’t mean to lie to Waverly, but that’s how she sees it. Everyone she loves lies to her,” Chrissy coughed quickly, realizing what she’d said, “…Everyone she cares about…”

* * *

Waverly had finally given into the ache of her shoulder and sat at home on a rainy evening, a bottle of wine open next to her second full glass, and a tome of Alexander the Great in her lap. She was dutifully trying to concentrate but the wine was making her sleepy and she was considering giving up the ghost and heading for an early bedtime when her phone chimed with a text message.  
  
Chrissy: You doing okay?  
Waverly: I’m fine. Having a glass or two of wine, was about to call it a night actually.  
C: Nicole came to see me today.  
W: The gall…  
C: She really cares about you, Waves.  
W: Funny way she’s shown it.  
C: Maybe you should just hear her out the next time you two talk?  
W: Pretty sure that won’t be happening since I told her not to call me again.  
C: You have her number too…  
W: I’m really tired. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Chris…  
  
Waverly didn’t fall asleep until 0230.

* * *

Nicole couldn’t stop herself from sitting outside Waverly’s neighborhood every morning until classes ended. Nicole wasn’t really working anyway, but she had began leaving the app on whenever she was close by in hopes that Waverly’s address would pop up on her notifications. She had no idea how Waverly was getting to school everyday, but she never once requested an Uber. When classes ended, Nicole assumed Waverly’s schedule would change and she really had no idea how. So she just sat around her house on Thursday and glanced at the phone every time someone requested an Uber. Nothing. Maybe Waverly was resting too.  
  
On Friday morning, Nicole pulled on her Iron Rangers for the first time since late Spring. She threw an extra jacket and sweatshirt into her emergency bag in the back of the Subaru, mindful of how quickly the weather could turn overnight while she was driving. There was a chill in the air and rain expected as predictions that the first winter weather would be arriving from the Pacific Northwest in a matter of days. She had to get back to work, she couldn’t keep waiting in foolish hope that Waverly would request an Uber and she could be there for her, especially when Waverly had all but said that wasn’t even a possibility.  
  
It was that same disappointed resolution that turned into glee when the first request after she cranked her car was at Waverly’s address. She confirmed pickup immediately. Waverly cancelled. Nicole waited. A second request, she confirmed again, Waverly cancelled. Nicole waited eighteen minutes, barely breathing, until she saw the request again. She didn’t accept in the split second her heart leapt from her chest at the mere thought of seeing Waverly because she spied the address. Purgatory…a good four hour drive. She accepted and then texted Waverly cautiously.  
  
Nicole: Please don’t cancel. It’s a long trip and I’m not sure how many other drivers are willing to go that far with the rain and cold coming in this weekend, especially in the Sierra Nevadas. My car has all wheel drive.  
  
She waited for six minutes; she didn’t move the car. Waverly didn’t cancel.  
  
Waverly: Fine. Please keep this strictly professional.  
  
Nicole didn’t respond. She backed out of her driveway and looked up to the heavens, thankful that the universe had granted her one last chance to make things right.

* * *

Waverly had refused to sit in the front seat with Nicole. She remained adamant that this was a professional endeavor for both of them. Nicole would be the driver and Waverly would be the passenger and at most, AT MOST, they would make light conversation when absolutely necessary. She ensured this by donning a pair of earphones for the first half of the journey. It might have been slightly more acceptable to Nic had Waverly seemed to be sleeping or relaxing with music on, but the earphones appeared to be more of the noise-cancelling variety only, as Waverly had read through one book entirely, jotting down notes in the margin, highlighting passages, fully consumed with the tome and obviously listening to nothing other than the sound of her own breathing perhaps.  
  
Nicole spent the first hour on her game plan and the second calculating when it needed to go into effect. By the halfway point, she was growing disheartened. Waverly seemed totally unaffected by Nic at this point and she worried it could be an indication that her last ditch efforts would be for naught. She was thankful she always had a little cooler in the floorboard other passenger seat when she was driving, but that meant she was thirsty. Her codependence reared its ugly head and she had plowed through five bottles of water so far. Her bladder screamed and she needed caffeine and a stretch. She pulled into the last modern convenience store before they began their ascent into the mountains.  
  
“You might want to use the facilities and get anything you’ll need before we make it to Purgatory,” Nicole suggested, hand motioning to get her attention eventually as it was virtually impossible otherwise with the earphones she still sported.  
  
“I’m fine,” Waverly confirmed, though she did remove the bulbs and finally made eye contact with Nicole.  
  
“Waverly, it’s another two hours at least, and that’s if we don’t hit snow before Blackwood Canyon. I promise not to accost you in the lavatory, okay?” Nicole reasoned.  
  
Waverly sighed, crossing and uncrossing her arms twice before she humphed and opened the car door, taking Nicole’s suggestion. They each used the restroom and gathered a few additional items, more water for Nic and a coffee. She was edgy, but couldn’t decide if that was because she was restless driving or anxious to finally, hopefully, have a chance to talk to Waverly before they made it to their destination. A small coffee, that’s what she allowed herself. Crawling back into the driver’s seat, Nicole noticed Waverly had gotten some water and fruit, as well as a coffee for herself. They made eye contact via the rearview mirror for a moment. Nicole couldn’t keep herself from smiling. Waverly’s lips almost tilted up, Nic swore they did, right as she looked away.  But the greatest miracle was that Waverly didn’t reinsert the earphones. She finished her coffee and stretched, Nicole noticing the sliver of skin at her midriff, even though she tried to be respectful as a “professional Uber driver” and watched as Waverly settled and closed her eyes, seemingly drifting off to sleep as the Subaru began to climb through the range.  
  
Waverly was exhausted, mentally and physically. She wanted to sleep, wanted to escape this most uncomfortable situation she had somehow gotten herself into, but it wasn’t coming. She resorted to the meditation techniques she had used for a decade in yoga and the deeper incantations she had moved to after her injury. Time pulled away from her and she saw a spiral of light, thrilling and relaxing her all at the same time. There was no sound and no real visual marker for where she was going. Deep meditation meant she could take her mind here, sometimes she felt her spirit join as well. Part of the reverie was that she didn’t need to see here, didn’t need anything she hadn’t brought along already. She began to float, weightless in her ethereal plane, and her breathing even out, slow and steady.  
  
“ _Waverly…._ ”  
  
She fell from the ascended plane at the sound of her name, Nicole calling to her from the real world, she swore. And then she cursed, jumping from her peaceful existence into the one fraught with pain and limitations.  
  
“NICOLE, I SAID TO BE PROFESSIONAL,” she hollered into the empty cab of the car. She pitched her head the full 180 degrees and there was no Nicole. The car was still and silent and only she remained inside. Realizing her unjust vexation, she pulled her shoulders in, her knees up against her chest, feet on the edge of the seat, arms wrapping around. She rocked herself for a moment or two until the door opened and Nicole bounded back into the driver’s seat.  
  
“Sorry, my coffee kicked in and I was just lucky enough to remember the Park Ranger’s office is here on this side road. It wasn’t more than a ten minute detour,” she explained before tilting her head and realizing the childlike demeanor of Waverly in the backseat. “You okay there, Waves?”  
  
Waverly’s hands moved from her calves up to her face, almost scrubbing against her eyes as she feebly attempted to clear her mind. “Yeah, I guess I had a nightmare or something.”  
  
“Want to talk about it?”  
  
“No, I’m good,” she dissuaded, releasing her legs back down into the floorboard and relaxing her posture slowly.  
  
“Do you want to go?” Nic motioned to the office she had just come from, “before we drive the last hour or so.”  
  
Waverly released her seatbelt as she nodded affirmation and went inside, straight to the washroom, barely speaking to the Ranger on duty. She washed her face and just stared at herself in the mirror for a few moments. “You are not going to give your heart to Nicole Haught, you understand me?” She pointed at herself in the reflection. “Don’t even listen to a word she says. She can’t be trusted.”  
  
Nicole drummed her fingers against the steering wheel repeating her mantra, the only one she knew, “Solve the problem. Solve the problem. Solve the problem.” She was so deep in the affirmation that she didn’t hear Waverly open the back door, then close it gingerly, sitting in silence, other that the repetitious words falling from Nicole’s mouth for a few minutes. Finally, she leaned up and tapped Nicole’s shoulder, breaking the monotony. “Oh, I’m sorry. I…I guess I’m never going to solve it if all I do is talk about it.”  
  
“You never talked to me about it. Not after that first day in the park,” Waverly eyes doubled in size and she bit her lip in an attempt to stop the accusation, the allowance of a reason should Nicole offer one.  
  
Nicole backed out of the parking area and turned back towards the main road. She argued internally over what to say and remembered how she had arrived at this juncture with Waverly. Finally, when they began the curvy, steep climb through the canyon, she spoke, in a harsh but firm tone, not toward Waverly, but for the truth.  
  
“I don’t have a solution.”  
  
“Oh,” was all Waverly allowed.  
  
“The reason I was leading a double life was because I couldn’t figure out how to fix my real one. There’s no excuse, Waverly. I should have explained after our first date. I should have told you that I had been playing both ends and I had no idea how to be…well god, Waverly, I didn’t know how to be me anymore. And until I was able to solve that problem, I sure as hell couldn’t figure out anything else.”  
  
They sat in silence through four sharp curves, the incline increasing, as snow began to fall. It started as a light wisp and quickly accumulated on the trees around them. Nicole focused on the road, Waverly focused on Nicole.  
  
“I know it was a fatal mistake, allowing myself to excuse the explanation you deserved from that day forward, if not before. When Chrissy told me about your father…Wynonna…” Waverly took a sharp breath in and tuned out the demons she had fought and defeated long ago, “I knew that I was just going to be one of those people you never forgave because I had fucked up. I had let the best thing that’s ever happened to me slip through my fingers because I was selfish and blind to how NOT telling you something would ruin anything we were building.”  
  
Waverly chuckled in disbelief, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from everyone lying to me, Nicole, is that it doesn’t matter what their motives were. A lie is a lie. Even at eight years old I knew that my daddy was a piece of shit for making me feel like the accident was my fault. But if you keep those things tucked away in your heart they will destroy you. It took me a lot of years to understand the true character of people who will hurt others.”  
  
Nicole was dumbstruck and she could barely get in a question as Waverly continued. The snow was falling heavy and they had finally crested the canyon and were coming to a clearing. The GPS finally engaged again after losing satellite midway on their last leg of the journey, dinging and alerting them that the stop was coming up in just under ten miles now.  
  
“It wasn’t that you lied, Nicole. I don’t know what Chrissy thought she was doing by telling you about my fucked up family, but people either build you up or let you down. It took a long time for Wynonna to finally show me that we had a bond. She was there for me when I got hurt, taking months off to help me rehabilitate, and even now when she’s serving on a task force at the border, she’s checking in to see how I’m handling everything.”  
  
Nicole was starting to feel like a whipped puppy and it had nothing and everything to do with how Waverly was finally giving her the what-for on how she had destroyed any hope they had of being something. The humility crept from deep inside and she mumbled, “so well, obviously.”  
  
“Nicole, the irony is that my mother was the only one that never lied to me. She just couldn’t hack it, so she left. She didn’t try to placate me with shallow hopes or excuses. She just left when I was young, when I could hardly remember her. She did the honorable thing by admitting she wouldn’t be someone sustainable in my life.”  
  
Waverly crossed her arms tightly across her chest and heaved a sigh of resolution. Their journey and conversation was coming to an end, in her sight. Nicole pulled up the long drive to the Homestead and let the car idle, the heat kicking in as the temperatures dropped rapidly outside. There was a good seven inches on the ground and the snow was piling up fast. Though only at late afternoon, the sky was dark and heavy. The storms from the Pacific Northwest that were only supposed to leave remnants of their fury in the Sierra Nevadas had decided that wouldn’t be sufficient. The sky was going to rage along with Waverly today.  
  
Nicole opened the car door without further words and pulled Waverly’s luggage from the hatchback of the Subaru. She placed it on the porch and then returned to the back passenger window, but she didn’t look inside. She waited as her warm breath turned to fog and her sweater dampened with fat snowflakes. Finally Waverly unlatched the locked door and looked to Nicole, taking an outstretched hand as she helped her through the blinding snow and up the steps to front of the Homestead. When she saw Waverly pull out a key and begin to unlock the door, she released her grasp and leaned against the frame. “Are you okay to be alone? I thought your sister was going to be here.”  
  
“Wynonna said she had a few meetings but would make it here before dark.”  
  
“She’s cutting it close,” muttered Nicole.  
  
“I’ll be fine. I’ll start a fire and have a glass of whiskey and read until I fall asleep. Wynonna assured me she filled the fridge before she left and I see plenty of firewood stacked on the side of the house.”  
  
“Waves, I’m a little worried…”  
  
“Don’t be, Nicole. At least one of us has learned to live with her disability, so I think I can hack it for a few hours until my big sister is here to protect me!”  
  
Nicole shook her head shallowly in agreement and turned to walk down the steps, but took one last attempt to make things right with Waverly. _This is the last thing you’re ever going to say to her, Nicole. Make it worthy._ _  
_  
“I could sustain you.”  
  
Waverly kept her back to Nicole, but didn’t move to enter the house. “What?”  
  
“I could sustain you. I don’t even know where I would find the strength and the skill to do it, but I would. And I know that’s no easy promise because you are already light and beauty and…whole, Waverly. And you are waiting, maybe even wanting, for me to admit that I’m broken. And until that day you climbed into my car and argued with me about the 38th Avenue Bridge I was…I still have so far to go. But I have a reason now, if you’ll allow me. I wake up every day and I see how far you’ve come, especially now, especially knowing about your family, and how you didn’t let them break your spirit. I won’t break your spirit, Waverly Earp. Please, please understand I was so lost that I couldn’t see that not telling you was just as hurtful as lying to you about the clusterfuck that my life was when we met. But I will spend every moment from here on out answering your questions and telling the gods-honest truth. I will be completely honorable. I know that when I think of solving the problem, I am strong enough now to do the work, to figure out what my life looks like, even if that means I’m deaf, not a cop, lonely. I just really want to know what my life would look like with you in it and I can figure out the rest. Please forgive me and give me the chance to show you I can be the person I was before. No…better than the person I was before.”  
  
Waverly didn’t realize she was crying until she saw the tears hit the dark cuff of her coat. Everything inside her told her to turn and run to Nicole and kiss her and say yes, YES, she wanted nothing more than that for them. But it was as if it was the Waverly who had protected her for so long took over before she could be soft and forgiving. She barely recognized her own voice, “I forgive you, Nicole. But you should get on the road before this storm gets worse. Do the honorable thing and leave me with the memory that you didn’t offer false hope.”  
  
Nicole choked out a sob before she collected herself enough to move towards the car, the engine churning a bit harsher than usual with the frigid temperatures now encroaching.  
  
“Sure, Waverly, whatever you want.”

* * *

Waverly opened the door as soon as she heard the gravel crunch under the tires of the Subaru, never turning to see Nicole leave. She pulled off her coat, dropping it to the floor, and beelined towards the cabinet that she knew held the good whiskey. She poured three fingers and killed it with a hard cough, pouring another immediately afterward. She stopped with the glass midway to her mouth when her phone lit up. She wasn’t sure why she needed it to be Nicole. Instead it was a voicemail from Wynonna, only now downloading to her messages once she had cell reception again in the open range area of the Homestead.  
  
“Hope you made it in before the weather got too bad. I’m stuck at the bottom of the canyon and won’t make it up tonight. I brought in a good stack of firewood so you wouldn’t have to worry about going out in the dark.  There’s also whiskey and actual food in the fridge. I’ll call in the morning to check on you, but didn’t want you to worry. Figured you’d get my voicemail before texts. Love you babygirl.”  
  
Waverly clutched the phone to her chest as the message ended, tears streaming down her face, as she hiccuped in pain and regret. She somehow managed to finish the glass of whiskey and poured another as she set to building a sturdy fire and settling in. The wind whipped the shingles on the roof and the sun was soon gone and Waverly felt lonelier than she could ever remember. She poured another shot of whiskey and slowly laid down on the couch, drifting off as the liquor finally numbed her mind and heart.

* * *

Nicole had barely made it down to the main road before she lost it, a wail bursting from deep in her gut. She white knuckled her way through the blinding snow and tears for a couple of miles, adamant that she didn’t give a damn what happened at this point anyway. She never saw the deer until it was too late, swerving and heading off the main road into a steep bank, the car’s engine dying seconds later, exhaust rising from the rear even as the front was buried in several feet of snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note - Purgatory, so many meanings, right? See ya next week...or you can come yell at me over on Twitter @comelayinmybed.
> 
> Lucky's Note - Readers: You read the tags right? Now it’s here. Things go boom. Hit me up on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo if you want @comelayinmybed’s real address to send actual hate mail through the postal service.


	8. no sense going away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I should have never told you to leave.”
> 
> “Why did you then?“
> 
> “I am a proponent of letting others help. I have constantly told you that I had to allow everyone to help me, when in reality, I could barely stand to let them. Trusting someone else to be there, to stay...it's too much.”
> 
> “You have got to be kidding me,” Nicole said incredulously.
> 
> “I know, I know, I’m horrible. We are a pair. I claim I can’t do anything alone and you don’t know how to do it any other way.”
> 
> “We’re a pair?” Nicole asked hopefully.

Nicole wasn’t sure whether it was the cold or the pain that woke her after the accident. The ringing in her head was the loudest it had been since the explosion, and she pressed fingers into her temple as consciousness returned to her.

“What the fuck?”

Her brow wrinkled tightly in pain for a few moments and then she set about getting her bearings. As she finally leaned back in the car seat, her eyes focused on the blood smearing her entire right hand, which instinctively moved back to her head, now feeling the gash above her eye.

“Great…superb,” she commented sarcastically, a deep breath expelled from her mouth as she surveyed her options. “Welp, this is going to be fun.”

Ten minutes later, she had crawled through to the tail of the Subaru, donning the extra sweatshirt and jacket she had hastily thrown in that morning, blood from her head dripping onto her shoulder as she couldn’t keep pressure on it and work towards a solution.

Nicole was considering how many times the car had spun before ending up in the snowbank. Figuring that out was the key in making it back to the Homestead with her very limited resources, all contained within a small emergency backpack. It was dark and only going to get colder; the snow still falling. The engine was dead and she would freeze to death before being discovered. Without further delay, she pushed open the hatchback door and climbed out, closing it and putting a note of her intent with an old red rag in the exhaust, hopeful that someone would see it in the early morning light and come looking for her.

* * *

Waverly awoke as the fire was dwindling down, regrettably more sober than she had hoped. She initially leaned forward to pour another glass, the bottle still open on the table, but just sighed and loosened her grip as quickly as she had taken it. She pulled the blanket from atop the couch onto her and snuggled in, gazing at the fire, knowing she should get up and add a few more logs before turning in for the evening. She absently glanced at her phone, no calls or texts, and noticed how late it had gotten. “That’s that,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and relived her brutal disintegration of Nicole’s efforts to save their relationship.

_“I could sustain you.”_

_“I forgive you, Nicole. But you should get on the road before this storm gets worse. Do the honorable thing and leave me with the memory that you didn’t offer false hope.”_

_“Sure, Waverly, whatever you want.”_

_“Whatever you want…”_

 

Waverly cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Nicole was arguing with herself as she trudged through the snow on the main road back towards the Homestead. At least she hoped she was awkwardly making small advances towards her only hope.

 

_Your only hope in every way._

_Too late for that even._

_Just don’t think about that right now. You have to get to the house so that you don’t DIE._

_Wouldn’t make much difference would it?_

_If Waverly could hear you now…way to prove to her you meant what you said._

 

Nicole forced herself to stop thinking. She went into survival mode, her body pushing itself beyond what her mind said she could do. The biting wind and snow, which would not stop falling she noted ruefully, were starting to piss her off. She growled into the dark night and plodded on…

* * *

Waverly’s throat stung when she awoke about an hour later. Her face was puffy and she was embarrassed at her behavior, not that it made a difference in the quiet lonely house. She stood solemnly, the blanket dropping to the floor, and went to the stack by the back door where she loaded wood, returning to stoke it into the fireplace, the heat radiating anew. She was comforted and sighed heartily before she moved to the kitchen to make some stew, deciding that was easy and would last a day or so even if the snow took her electricity eventually.

She was just settling back into the oversized chair with a new book, something more whimsical than history selected for tonight, when she heard rustling close to the front of the house. Initially she thought her mind was playing tricks on her. It was obviously the wind whipping tree limbs or other bits of Sierra flotsam, but when it began to create an insistent scratching, she grew concerned. Perhaps a bear or other wild animal had come closer than usual in an effort to find refuge from the storm.

Waverly quietly picked the shotgun up from behind the door, ensured that it was already loaded and cocked both barrels. She hastily put on her coat and shoes, and squared herself, hand on the doorknob. Waverly was terrified. She hadn’t been alone at the Homestead since losing her peripheral vision and the fear of being sideswiped by a ravenous animal was something she couldn’t quell. But she also couldn’t lay prey for them, alone out here during a blizzard.

As quietly as she could, Waverly turned the knob and slowly opened the door, the gun raised, sight following the muzzle. She tracked the entirety of the front from right to left and back again and…nothing. She saw tracks in the snow on the first scan and returned to them, her head tilting in consternation because they looked like much larger, rougher tracks and as she realized they were human, she heard the smallest voice.

“Waves…”

Waverly spun to her left, the shotgun immediately pointed to the sky, as she looked down to see Nicole. With her back against the front wall of the Homestead, her arms open by her side, gloved hands covered in snow laying prostrate by her legs, Nicole was a pitiful sight if Waverly had ever seen one. She bent down beside Nicole, stunned. “Oh my god, what happened?”

“Deer. Wrecked the car. Couldn’t stay the night there,” was all Nicole could get out, her entire body shivering.

Waverly didn’t respond, she left the gun on the porch and handily grabbed Nicole’s jacket, dragging her over the threshold and into the warmth of the Homestead, as close to the fire as she could before laying her down. She returned quickly for the gun and shut the door with a heavy thud.

Waverly moved immediately to Nicole, pulling the blanket from where it had been discarded a couple hours earlier and tucking it around Nicole’s shoulders. Then she thought better; this wouldn’t be enough. Nicole was soaking wet, having obviously fallen in the snow several times in her trek back to the Homestead. Waverly turned and expeditiously gathered dry clothes from Wynonna’s room, returning and kneeling down to Nicole who remained despondent.

“Look what you’ve gotten yourself into...” Waverly began to make conversation as she unzipped Nicole’s coat, pulling it off her arms, then the sweatshirt, then the flannel, leaving her in only a T-shirt, and replacing them with a heavy-knit sweater. “These jeans are soaking wet and your feet are probably frozen solid, so I’m going to take them off, okay?”

Nicole didn’t really look at Waverly. She didn’t look at anything and Waverly suspected it was because the gash on her forehead had left her quite dazed in the least. But she was trying to focus on what she could fix immediately, so she brushed the clumps of snow from the Iron Rangers and pulled them off. Nicole groaned a little, her feet blue, and Waverly rubbed each of them between her hands for a few moments warming them as best she could before leaning in encouragingly. “I need to…we should take your pants off…”

Nicole actually nodded her agreement and moved to unbutton her jeans, her hands shaking wildly. Waverly covered them with her own and helped Nicole unbutton them. She slid the zipper down as graciously as she could, both of them focused distinctly on the action, “I never thought this was how I’d do that the first time,” she breathed. Nicole looked up then and actually smirked a little.

Waverly helped Nicole stand and jerked the sopping denim down her legs until Nicole could step free, holding tightly to the arm of the chair closest to her. She remained there while Waverly helped her into thick sweatpants and then sat wearily down in the same chair.

Waverly pulled heavy wool socks onto her feet and pushed the chair closer to the fire. She pulled another blanket from the bureau in the corner and wrapped it tightly around Nicole, who finally found Waverly with her eyes, her hand reaching out as she secured it around her. Nicole swallowed hard and Waverly could tell she didn’t know what to say, so she excused the idea readily, “I have some stew. You must be starving and it’ll help warm you up too. Just stay here, I’ll be right back.”

* * *

The snowstorm continued to gust and billow outside, but it was muted by the crackle of the fire. She and Waverly had sat in easy silence and by the time they had each finished two bowls of stew, Nicole had stopped shivering and color was returning to her. She let the spoon slide along the bottom of the porcelain as she set the bowl down beside the chair, where she remained ensconced in her blanket. “This wasn’t exactly how I thought we’d spend our first night together,” she finally stated.

Waverly laughed; she couldn’t help herself. Then she stood decisively and came over to the chair, crouched down, her hands landing on Nicole’s knees. “Your head is a mess. Do you think you can walk?”

Nicole shook her head in affirmation and Waverly returned to standing, holding out her hand for Nicole to take. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she encouraged as she led them to the bathroom.

* * *

Nicole sat on the edge of the clawfoot tub while Waverly located the first aid kit and clean cloths, her fingers curling under the edge of the porcelain lip tentatively as Waverly prepared to tend to the cut on her head. She had chanced a look in the mirror when they entered the bathroom and agreed it was ugly. At least they were about the same height with Nicole leaning down against the sturdy base of the tub, holding on now for dear life it seemed, as she grew more anxious.

Waverly cleared her throat before finally stepping in front of Nicole, obviously a bit uncomfortable without boundaries after the way they had left things earlier. She tilted Nicole’s head up with a finger under her chin and looked in her eyes reassuringly before she began washing the area around the gash. The gentle way she glided the warm cloth against Nicole’s cheek was calming and Waverly felt her relax a few moments in, her fingers loosening their vice-grip on the tub.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

“It’s nothing at all,” dismissed Waverly.

“It’s everything to me, Waverly,” Nicole said, her hands unconsciously reaching out, gently landing on Waverly’s thighs near her knees.

Waverly felt Nicole’s hands, lingering against her, almost an absent action between them and her breath caught for a second. She opted to act as if she was unaware. “Your head took a pretty good lick. Want to tell me what happened?”

“Umm…I…”

“Can you not remember?” Waverly asked, growing concerned.

“No, I remember. I was…well, I was crying and it was snowing really hard and I didn’t see the deer until it was too late. I think I hit it, but either way, I ended up in a snowbank. I’m not sure how long I was out, probably not too long, but when I woke up the car was dead and it was dark…and the snow was still piling up, so I knew I had to get out of there.”

Waverly had become extremely focused on the cut, attempting to avoid Nicole’s revelation. She tilted her head down, then back and forth, dabbing it with the damp cloth, finally deciding it was ready for treatment. Just then the sound of a transformer box popped and all the lights on the Homestead flickered out.

“Dammit, I knew it was going to go eventually,” sighed Waverly. She dropped her hands and proceeded to leave Nicole in the darkened bathroom for a few moments, returning with an oil lamp and a few candles she could leave perched on the sink. The lamp she sat at their feet with hopes the steady flame would offer up enough light to finish tending to Nicole’s wound. She resumed her place and Nicole immediately put her hands back on Waverly’s thighs, this time a little higher, the tips of her fingers pressing into the back of her legs.

“You were crying?” Waverly asked nonchalantly.

“Yes, of course I was crying. You had just crushed my heart.”

“I don’t need you to sustain me,” Waverly explained matter-of-factly.

“I never said you did. I just said that I would. I just wanted to be the one who could,” Nicole whispered, her hands opening wider against Waverly’s thighs, warmth radiating from them…at least that’s where the warm was coming from Waverly told herself.

“You don’t know how long you were unconscious?” Waverly redirected.

“No, does it look serious?”

“Not too bad. I thought maybe you had a pretty serious concussion when I first saw you, so quiet and dejected, but maybe you were just more hypothermic,” Waverly reasoned, as she leaned over towards the sink for some ointment and bandages, Nicole loosening her grip slightly until Waverly returned. “Come closer, I can barely see…” she instructed.

Nicole slid up, opening her legs so that Waverly could slot between them, her hands returning to the top curve of the tub in an attempt not to touch Waverly, not to wrap her arms around her, pull her near, feel all the delicious warmth emanating from her body. Both of their breaths hitched as Waverly shook her head slightly, the hair around her face falling back, exposing her neck, a quickening pulse evident.

Waverly administered the antiseptic first, causing a sting of pain to radiate through Nicole’s face. She hissed, her hands jumping to Waverly’s hips, even as her head jerked away from Waverly’s hands.

“Be still, you big baby,” Waverly smiled comfortingly, allowing Nicole to pout as she continued, “you walked miles in the snow and your hands were blue when you got here, so I think you’ll survive this…” They shared breath in silence, Waverly doctoring Nicole’s head.

“I couldn’t hear.”

Waverly furrowed her brow and leaned away from Nicole to focus on her directly.

“I think the battery is dead in my hearing aid and I couldn’t do anything about that at the time,” Nicole explained, “I have learned not to speak when I’m unsure what’s been said to me.”

“But you can hear me now,” Waverly confirmed, finishing with the ointment and applying the stripe closures to the cut, before covering them all with another bandage.

Nicole moved her hand from where it had remained on Waverly’s hip, to her arm, grazing her fingers up to her wrist, wrapping her fingers around and guiding Waverly’s hand to her right ear. “I can hear with this one,” she paused, guiding Waverly’s other hand to her left one in the exact same manner, “This one not so much.”

Waverly noticed there wasn’t a hearing aid in either of Nicole’s ears at this point, and outside of their close proximity, she could have probably said a world of desperate, intimate, and even hurtful things and Nicole would have been none the wiser. It made her want to scream, but she never uttered a sound. She traced her fingers around the shell of each ear, then pushed the hair away from Nicole’s face, Waverly’s hands sliding under her jaw tilting up to where their eyes met. Nicole’s hands moved back to Waverly’s hips and then trailed around her back, pulling her close against Nicole’s torso, fingers in the shallows between Waverly’s ribs.

“All better,” Waverly mumbled, her eyes fixed on Nicole’s mouth, as her fingers delicately traced the outline of the bandage, down and over the scar by her eye, across her cheek, thumb finally stroking lightly across a bottom lip.

“Waves…I…” Nicole began, but Waverly didn’t want to hear anything. She didn’t want words to complicate this moment. She just wanted to kiss Nicole. She wanted a good, thorough kiss. Waverly covered Nicole’s mouth with her thumb while her lips made haste to replace it, her body relinquishing control under Nicole’s strengthening hold of her.

It wasn’t tentative or indecisive. Waverly kissed Nicole profoundly, her hand moving from Nicole’s jaw to the back of her neck, fingers digging into the sinewed muscle. It summoned a moan from Nicole as her mouth opened welcomingly, her tongue sliding against Waverly’s, curling and sucking it in, a jolt of heat running from her mouth down the middle of her body. Nicole tilted up, her body gravitating off the tub. Only her open legs, Waverly between them, kept her from standing upright.  Nicole moved her hands from shoulder to ass delicately at first, then with increasing need and coarse cadence, the proximity of their hips growing close with each route until they were flush and burning.

Only when Nicole whimpered with the angle burdening her already weak body, did Waverly lessen her frenzied actions. She pulled away slowly, leaving small kisses on Nicole’s cheeks, nose, the corner of her mouth. She leaned her forehead against Nicole’s as they both tried to regulate their breathing.

“I think your hands are fine now,” was all Waverly allowed.

* * *

Waverly held Nicole’s hand lightly as she led them back to the main room of the Homestead. She wasn’t sure why she had stopped kissing Nicole except for the doubts she worried would always plague her mind.  She instructed Nicole to take a seat back in the chair, the exhaustion evident on her face again, betraying the look of arousal that remained in her darkened eyes.

“I’ll be right back.”

Waverly climbed the stairs and gathered comforters, pillows, anything soft and warm she could from her old bedroom and even Wynonna’s, everything her arms could carry in a couple of loads, piling them up near the fireplace, moving the couch back to make a pallet. “The bed upstairs would be warm, but I think it’s smarter to sleep in front of the fire since the power is out. You can take the couch and I’ll take the pallet here.”

“We double our heat efficiency if we sleep together…” Nicole suggested.

Waverly’s eyes widened and she started four sentences before she pursed her lips together and threw up her hands.

“I promise to be very respectful of you, which will be super easy because I can barely keep my eyes open, Waverly.”

“I guess I need to make sure you actually don’t have a serious concussion, and it would be easier this way,” conceded Waverly, more to herself than Nicole.

“Whatever you say, Waves,” Nic acknowledged, crawling out of the chair and under the blankets Waverly had fashioned into a cavernous groove for them - one of them at least. She curled up, pulling one of the pillows to her chest, the fire silhouetting her face as it relaxed.

Waverly assumed she was asleep moments later and padded from the room, stripping and putting on a hoodie and sweatpants, washing her face, discussing her predicament in the mirror.

“It’s just one night. Nicole is already asleep. She’s hurt and she’s exhausted. What kind of person would you be if you made your stand over something as stupid as where you both sleep in a house with no electricity during a blizzard?”

The mirror did not respond.  

* * *

Waverly gingerly crawled into the remaining cove of the blankets without further thought. She laid uncomfortably on her back, Nicole breathing heavily beside her, obviously deep in sleep. Waverly stared up at the ceiling for a good hour. Her mind ran wild on how exhaustion was a main symptom of a concussion and worry started to nag her even as she listened to Nicole sleep ever so soundly. She kept it at bay until Nicole arched forward, curling into herself, a hand at her ear.

Waverly shook Nicole quickly, “Nic…Nicole, wake up.”

Nicole groaned and pushed Waverly’s hand off her arm initially, unaware of what exactly was happening. _Confusion, another sign of concussion_ , pulsed through Waverly’s brain.

“Nicole…NICOLE,” she finally shouted.

Nicole bolted to sitting, her hands grabbing at her head, “Argh, Waverly…what the hell??”

“You were confused and lethargic and it looked like you had a severe headache and I just thought you had a concussion!” blurted Waverly.

“Are you serious?!…I was **sleeping** and then you shook me awake in the middle of the night! Of course I was confused! Jesus, Waverly, I’m fine. I was probably just having a nightmare if I grabbed my head,” she confessed.

“Oh…” Waverly hadn’t even considered this was normal for Nicole, that she regularly still had nightmares. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Nicole,” she admonished herself, reaching out to offer a consoling touch.

Nicole eyed the hand on her forearm and realized that Waverly hadn’t known this was a possibility. Ultimately, they had never spent the night together and Nicole certainly hadn’t thought to prepare Waverly for the possibility of this happening when she was there. Mostly because Nicole felt free of her inner demons with Waverly in her presence.

She laid her own hand on top of Waverly’s and held it there while she relaxed back into the makeshift bed. “It’s okay. I should have told you, it just never occurred to me that I would have a nightmare with you sleeping beside me,” she reflected.

“I was so worried and this is my fault.”

“Me being mostly deaf isn’t your fault in any way, Waverly Earp,” Nicole chuckled.

“I mean, the accident…”

“No, I’m pretty sure I hold most of the blame for that too.”

Waverly left her hand on Nicole’s arm, her thumb stroking the soft skin in a small way of offering comfort, really to both of them. Nicole’s fingers traced her knuckles, both refusing to look at the other.

“I should have never told you to leave.”

“Why did you then?“

“I am a proponent of letting others help. I have constantly told you that I had to allow everyone to help me, when in reality, I could barely stand to let them. Trusting someone else to be there, to stay...it's too much.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nicole said incredulously.

“I know, I know, I’m horrible. We are a pair. I claim I can’t do anything alone and you don’t know how to do it any other way.”

“We’re a pair?” Nicole asked hopefully.

Waverly lifted Nicole’s arm and angled up against her side, resting her head on her shoulder. Nicole hugged Waverly against her tightly, a long sigh escaping them both. Finally, Waverly whispered into Nicole’s ear, “You’re not off the hook yet, Haught, but I guess since you’ve faced death today, that’s enough for now.”

* * *

Waverly had fallen into such a sound sleep, she didn’t realize Nicole wasn’t holding her until some time later. She awoke on her stomach, hands reaching to find blankets, but no real warmth. She slowly picked her head up and looked around hazily. She squinted at first, questioning the image in front of her.

Nicole sat atop the bedding, her back against the couch, arms draped over her knees. Waverly saw a glint of the whiskey bottle she had left on the table now beside Nicole on the floor, the same empty glass beside it. Nicole didn’t seem to even notice that Waverly was awake, and so watched curiously as Nicole’s lips moved in discussion with herself, her fists clenching tighter and tighter, an internal battle of wits. Slowly Waverly turned on her side, facing Nicole, her hand tentatively reaching out, but then stalling at the last moment, almost afraid to break the invisible barrier between them.

Nicole never touched the bottle and Waverly’s mind drifted to whether or not she had somehow left it there earlier, just a happenstance to see it now at the base of the sofa. She decided that no, she had definitely left it on the table, so Nicole must have moved it. _A drink would help us both_ , Waverly thought briefly, but was quickly pulled back to the present when something clicked in Nicole’s face. She had decided a course of action, and then it was all dimpled smile and cocked eyebrow and “come here” as she reached down, taking Waverly’s hand and pulling her deftly into Nicole’s lap.

 _Nicole is strong_ was the first thought that coursed through Waverly’s mind, one minute a foot away and the next leaning into the crook of Nicole’s neck, her side angled against her chest, the smell of fire, honey and vanilla overpowering her. She closed her eyes and took in the sheer comfort she felt in Nicole’s arms. She couldn’t be bothered to think she needed whiskey now, she only needed Nicole.

“I am so sorry, Waverly. I never meant for anything to come between us. I certainly never knew the reckless actions I had taken over the last year would have such consequences,” Nicole whispered reverently. “And I did not lie when I said that this was something special to me. It’s the most special, most amazing notion that’s ever been in my head. That you could care about me, and be patient with me, and take all this time and effort, for me. I never meant to hurt you or make you distrustful of me. Ever since that day in the school, I haven’t made good decisions.”

Nicole stopped, shook her head softly as if clearing her mind, “No, I haven’t trusted my decisions since that day. And when you got into my car…when you came into my **_life_ ** , Waverly…I knew if I could learn to trust myself again, then you could learn to trust me too. I was so close to it and it just slipped through my hands, the house of cards I had built collapsing.”

Waverly pulled her arms from where they were folded against her ribs and wrapped them around Nicole’s middle, tucking her head under Nicole’s chin. But Nicole leaned back and kissed her forehead, “I would never hurt you intentionally. I would never do anything to make you feel you couldn’t trust me…rely on me. Waverly, I -”

Nicole stopped and released her hold on Waverly, her legs relaxing beneath them, her arms falling away. Waverly considered what Nicole was going to say, her arm falling down Nicole’s back, a hand down at her knee. And then she knew what she needed. She pushed herself up from Nicole’s shoulders, twisted, and bent her legs between their bodies until she was straddling Nicole, one hand grasping at her neck for balance as she twisted the lid off the whiskey and poured enough liquid courage for the both of them. Waverly swallowed half the glass, her eyes watering from the burn.

“We’re a pair,” she reiterated as her other hand threaded through Nicole’s hair, drawing Nicole impossibly close to her, the honey and vanilla returning in a strong flood of what Waverly only knew as _Nicole_. She tipped the glass towards Nicole for her to finish, and Nicole took it from her hands, but only to set it on the hardwood beside them, capping the whiskey bottle and shoving it under the couch, her eyes smoldering with desire for nothing more than Waverly.

And then came the fire as Nicole ran her tongue along Waverly’s bottom lip before sucking it between her teeth and biting the slightest bit, then soothing it as her deft, warm tongue pushed deep into Waverly’s mouth, a moan coming from deep in Nicole’s chest… _deeper_ , thought Waverly.

Nicole leaned forward off the couch and pushed under Waverly’s hoodie, her hands reaching across the unbounded expanse of soft skin, fingertips trailed around to right under Waverly’s breasts, her thumbs pressing slightly against already hard nipples, her urge to have no barriers between her hands, her mouth and Waverly’s body,  and she whined in torturous realization of what this was escalating towards.

“Are you sure?” She asked almost regretfully.

Waverly pulled back, dampness on Nicole’s neck where she had been in discovery, and raked her hands down the front of the sweater, her fingers twisting in the thick material at the hem. She panted, looking down, and nodded her head. And then, with renewed conviction, she looked up, meeting Nicole’s eyes single-mindedly as she pulled the hoodie over her head, tossing it across the room, “Absolutely sure.”

Nicole grunted with sheer desire and pawed Waverly’s ass, drawing her flush against her hips, her hands kneading the hard muscles and then sliding under the band of Waverly’s sweatpants at the small of her back, pressure and then a squeeze of territorial bliss. “You feel so good and I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone, anything,” she whispered.

Waverly commanded Nicole’s mouth to her own with a sharp twist of chin and hair in her hands, her body sliding against Nicole’s, unfettered. “Need to feel you too,” she croaked out, “all of you,” as she pulled the sweater and T-shirt over Nicole’s head all at once. The exultation that broke from both of them as skin met skin was primal. Waverly barely relished the moment before her hand slid beneath Nicole’s waistband, cupping her, their breath hitching.

“Whoa…” Nicole tensed, her hand grabbing at Waverly’s arm, “Hold on just one second…”

Waverly looked the slightest bit hurt or offended, Nicole couldn’t be sure, and so she smiled soothingly, and then narrowed her eyes calculating the outcome of this decisive moment. She decided minimal words were most effective, so she just moved her hand deliberately to Waverly’s center, pleasantly surprised there was no underwear, nothing to inhibit her exploration of the wet, slick warmth that her fingers began to trace through. And in appreciation of this, Nicole opened her legs wider, titling her hips towards Waverly in full invitation. “We’re a pair, afterall.”

Waverly’s breath quickly became a staccato of pleasure and she furrowed her brow in concentration returning to the motion of rubbing her palm against Nicole, more and more pressure, destroying the underwear she had left her in when she was rescued, and so she simply pulled it to the side and forced her eyes open so that she could see Nicole’s face as she slid two fingers deep inside.

Nicole eyes slammed shut and her head fell back, her rhythm against Waverly faltering momentarily as all her pleasure sensors fired like never before. She regulated her breathing and brought her eyes back to Waverly… _Waverly_ , she wondered if she had said aloud some hours later. And then the pulse from Waverly echoed into her own body and back out through her fingers, pushing deep inside, twisting, causing Waverly to moan and buck against her.

And Nicole marveled at how they could look at each other now, owning their moment, their bodies working in unison for a long-sought revelation. Breath quickening, chests heaving, she wondered for a split-second how she had the capacity to do this in parallel union to Waverly, so strong and perfect and whole above her, looking down, her hair curtaining their faces, her mouth coming to cover Nicole’s own as they shared everything that had eluded them. Visceral pleasure rippled through their bodies as they both crested at the same time, curse words off one tongue immediately onto another, their bodies straining against each other until their arms burned and their hips jolted against one another, coming hard.

Waverly was high…she felt so high, as if she were soaring above the clouds  to where the air was thin and hard to breath. She gasped and found herself falling against Nicole’s chest, her hips still undulating at the orgasm that continued throbbing deep inside her. Nicole kissed her neck tenderly. “Wow…”

“We waited entirely too long to do that,” Nicole conceded.

Waverly laughed, rolling her head to where she could kiss Nicole’s chin without moving, “Are you saying I’m an easy lay, Nicole Haught?”

Nicole trailed her kisses up to behind Waverly’s ear as if that would ease the blow of her answer, “Well, then that only makes us a pair for sure, Waverly Earp, because…you know...”

Waverly nodded her head and pushed at Nicole’s shoulders so that they both were resting against the front of the sofa, _regrouping_ is what she thought to herself, because they weren’t nearly done yet.

When their breath had evened out, Nicole plucked Waverly from atop her legs and laid her down on their makeshift bed gently. She took hold of the waistband of the sweatpants, twisted and askew, but still low on Waverly’s hips and pulled them quickly away, shuffling them off to the side. Then Nicole stood and stripped herself entirely, the moonlight casting shadows on her body that made Waverly’s breath catch in her throat.  The moment fleeting as she knelt, then took Waverly’s ankles, sliding her as if she were weightless to the center of the blankets.

Nicole lingered above Waverly, her eyes following the outline her hands made against the magnificent curves of Waverly’s body. Finally her hand caressed up Waverly’s calf, to her thigh, over her hip, tickling her ribs, before making way to the valley between her breasts, as she laid her weight slowly against Waverly’s form, her mouth ghosting behind the hand at Waverly’s pulse point, until she could hear Nicole’s sharp breaths of anticipation.

Waverly wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find words. Nicole didn’t want to say anything. She wanted to show Waverly what this meant to her. She  followed the same languishing path that she had taken up and back again and again with her hand, her fingers carefully exploring, exploring every dip and curve, every freckle, every tiny scar and blemish, her mouth following suit when further inspection was required. Waverly burned beneath her, gasping and writhing as Nicole took infinite time, relishing the being below her, her tongue tracing the outline of hips, the crease at the apex of Waverly’s thigh, her hands holding the arch of a back as Waverly could hardly bear the fire deep in her belly that Nicole stoked with every flick of her tongue, the ever increasing weight of her fingers against flesh.

“Please, Nicole…” she broke, almost a cry deep from her throat.

Nicole plunged her tongue into Waverly, her hands anchoring hips to steady the tide of pleasure she purposed to draw for as long as possible. Waverly threaded her hands through Nicole’s hair, pulling her impossibly tighter against her, her hips rolling into the quickening rhythm Nicole created as her she sucked, then licked, then dove deeply into Waverly again and again, seeming effortlessly to draw her higher and higher, a precipice from which Waverly knew she would fall eagerly.

Waverly held out as long as she could, never wanting the feeling of Nicole’s mouth against her to end, but when Nicole slipped two fingers inside her, it was overpowering and she crumbled, shuddering hard, a choked moan ebbing out of her for what she felt was an inordinate amount of time. But she couldn’t hold any of her bliss inside, and so she didn’t. She let herself float along the revelry. She let herself roam free, not afraid to trust Nicole with her joy.

Nicole intimately understood what Waverly had granted her in that moment and as she began to come down, Nicole pulled her close, her body still shaking slightly. She placed delicate kisses everywhere, her body leaving a sheen of sweat against every part of Waverly that she touched. Waverly yearned for more and hooked her heel against Nicole’s thigh, wrenching their hips together, causing Nicole to shiver above her. “Again,” Waverly pleaded.

Nicole’s fingers returned to her, and Waverly arched into their quest, her hands seeking purchase on Nicole’s ass, nails leaving crescent moons on the alabaster skin as she sunk deeper into Waverly, a groan escaping her as they began to pitch and quake. Waverly scraped a red line up Nicole’s back, once, twice, three times, as the coil in her belly tightened beyond consequence. “Let go, baby,” Nicole whispered and it burst in a flashpoint, Waverly crying out.

Waverly couldn’t decipher time after that and she was wholly unsure how long it had been before she opened her eyes. The snow had finally stopped falling and the light of early morning was creeping across the horizon, hazily reflecting into the front windows. But Nicole was still the weight of a thigh between Waverly’s, arms wrapped around her shoulders.

“Hi.”

“Hey you,” Waverly returned, hands pushing into Nicole’s hair and drawing her into a deep and satisfying kiss. Breathless, Waverly broke away, her mind swimming with possibility as she shifted her weight to roll them over, landing atop Nicole roughly.

Waverly pushed up on her arms, her strength returning, and her eyes turning ravenous as she began to drag her tongue down the center of Nicole’s chest to the end of her sternum, licking a wide swatch up and around each breast, her warm mouth covering each pert nipple as her tongue swirled around it again and again until Nicole writhed beneath her almost to the point of pleasured pain.

Waverly’s fingers scratched lightly along the full length of Nicole’s torso as her mouth continued to work feverishly, the pop of suction audible as she admired the reddened hard tips that she glanced her cheek against, before sliding the full weight of her body, slick and hot, against Nicole, coming to rest at her throat, nibbling from the center out to each shoulder and back again as her fingers played in the wet warmth between Nicole’s legs.

“Waves, please…” Nicole begged when she could stand it no more. Waverly thrusted deep inside her as reward, Nicole mewling and arching hard against her hand in a desperate quick cadence, her orgasm building furious and deliberate in Waverly’s flux.  

Nicole grabbed at Waverly’s shoulders pulling their bodies flush and closed her eyes, giving herself over, as she tumbled hard into the swell of her climax, waves crashing again and again through her, leaving her weak and spent, her lips still quivering at the shell of Waverly’s ear when they had finally stilled.

Nicole felt safe, whole, complete for the first time in as long as she could remember, even before the explosion. Waverly fell back against the floor and drew Nicole to her carding her fingers through the wild tangles of red hair, soothing Nicole, lulling to sleep with the beat of Waverly’s heart, the only thing she could hear.

* * *

The sun spilled through the windows warming the main room of the Homestead enough that Waverly could be motivated to rise with the dawn. She slowly moved from Nicole’s sleepy grasp, rising to find that the power had returned when she attempted to flip the lights on in the kitchen. She started coffee and  brought in wood, rekindling the fire from the night before, Nicole never the wiser as she lay on her belly, the only hearing she had essentially obstructed by the hard surface of the floor beneath the pallet where she rested her head.

Waverly had never relinquished words of promise during intimacy. She had never committed to a future. She absently regarded the fact that she had never said she loved anyone outside her family, not at least since puppy love in high school or college, not since she had realized love made her vulnerable.  It has almost been a point of pride with her, how protective she could be of her heart.

Now pride left her empty. Nicole sleeping soundly, here in her childhood home, a part of…a part of her, she realized. Nicole was becoming something crucial, a fundamental part of her life whether she welcomed it or not. She was so tempted to give in. She was so tempted to just trust that what they had was something special, as Nicole had told her time and again.

In her unbidden moment of vulnerability, she laid back down beside Nicole.  She paused before letting the wisp of her fingernails trace the outline of Nicole’s face, then she leaned in slowly, protected by the silence burdening their existence in this moment and barely whispered against the back of Nicole’s left ear, “I’m falling in love with you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note: FINALLY!! and only 2/3 of the way through... I am constantly overwhelmed by the loyalists and new readers who comment/kudos us every week. I really hope, as we start to wrap this story, that you will continue to be enamored. If so (or if not) you are always welcome to message here or find me at @comelayinmybed on Twitter & Tumblr.
> 
> Lucky's note: AHHHHH, our babies right? And the BOOM, huh? I love them so much and especially in this chapter. Sometimes the universe really doesn't care what we tell each other, the right thing is going to happen! Who deserves happiness more than these two? I sure hope it sticks... Holler at me on Twitter @LuckyWantsTo


	9. everything you've got inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I do, Wynonna. I want Bulshar and I want all the criminals that come after him and I want to kick ass at doing what it takes to apprehend them, but I just…justice doesn’t keep me warm at night anymore.”
> 
> “And Bonus Blanket upstairs does…” Wynonna concluded.

Nicole expected to wake up with a headache the next morning, but was instead pleasantly surprised to find that the only part of her that was sore was definitely not her head. She couldn’t help but smirk a little as she pushed off the floor and located the clothes Waverly had procured the night before, pulling them on as she began to trip through the house.

“Waves? Waves, where are you?”

Coming into the kitchen, Nicole smelled coffee and she couldn’t resist pouring herself a cup. She caught her reflection in the window and did a double-take. _Jesus, Haught, you’re a disaster_ , she assessed. Gulping down the rest of the coffee, she meandered towards the bathroom. She didn’t want to impose, but she also craved the hot, cleansing water of a shower, and to at least try to be presentable for her girlfriend… _I mean, I hope she’s my girlfriend at this point_ , she reasoned.

Nicole found the door pulled to but not closed, so she ventured in and as she entered the bathroom, steam and Waverly filled all her senses. She was in the huge tub, water precariously close to spilling over, her head back, eyes closed. Nicole didn’t know if she was asleep, so she perched over the edge and whispered, “Waverly.”

Waverly opened her eyes languidly and smiled at Nicole above her. Her hand appeared from the bubble-covered water, running up Nicole’s neck, pulling her into a soft kiss, “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she hummed.

“Good morning,” Nicole returned, “You stole my idea.”

“And what was that?” Waverly asked, kissing her again, a little more fervently, distracted by the taste of coffee and herself on Nicole’s lips.

“I need a shower,” Nicole leaned closer to Waverly, balancing herself with both arms on the sides of the tub, her sweater dangerously close to dragging through the water.

“Will you settle for a bath?” Waverly propositioned, nipping at Nicole’s bottom lip.

Nicole pushed herself off the tub suddenly and stripped down naked as Waverly’s eyes grew and a soft, “ohhh….” escaped her mouth. She grabbed a hold and plunged one leg, then the other into the tub, towering over Waverly, ripples and then the water sloshing over the sides as Nicole pressed cleanly through the water and slid her body against Waverly’s.

“This will have to do, I suppose,” Nicole acquiesced as she allowed the water to hide all of the ways her fingers had began to touch Waverly. A tide doused the entirety of the bathroom floor moments later as their bodies began to rock, but neither of them could be bothered to give a damn.

* * *

An hour later, Nicole finally pushed herself from the bottom of the tub, the water lukewarm at best, and reached for the towel Waverly had left nearby. She dried off only to step in the freezing cold remnants of their saturated dalliance and a chill ran up her back, even as she smiled demurely.

Nicole was so… _happy_ ….yes, that was the word. It had been such a foreign concept to her for so long that it took her a bit more time to identify it. But it was indeed happiness, she would actually say **joy** . And as she puttered around the bathroom, combing her wet hair, assessing the bruises and cut on her head, finally dressing in the clean clothes Waverly had brought in to her from Wynonna’s room, she allowed herself to revel in it. If only for this morning, nothing else made a goddamn bit of difference. She had **_Waverly_ **.

* * *

Waverly was in the kitchen making breakfast when Nicole finally left the warmth of the bathroom, and when she turned to see her standing in the doorway, she beamed. “I hope you like pancakes?”

“I love them,” Nicole said as she came up behind Waverly, hugging her close for a moment as she pressed light kisses to her neck, before relinquishing her for a fresh cup of coffee. She leaned against the sink and just admired Waverly finishing up breakfast. “I love…” but she cleared her throat hurriedly and scratched her neck before grabbing the plates from the counter to put them on the table, changing the subject, “Did you happen to see a backpack when you found me on the porch last night?”

Waverly pursed her lips together and pointed the spatula she was still holding at Nicole. If she had heard the two words, she didn’t offer any indication. “Actually yes, I think it’s still sitting by the front door, beside the shotgun.”

Nicole went in search of the bag and returned moments later with it in hand. It had survived the journey in quite a bit better shape than Nicole. She sat it in a chair beside her and dug into the stack of pancakes, her hand trailing the fork, to shove the oversized bite into her mouth. She glanced up to see Waverly’s eyebrows raised, but almost laughing at her. “I mean, I’ve earned them, I think?”

“Oh, you definitely have, babe,” Waverly winked. “What’s in the bag?”

Nicole unzipped the main part and pulled out a small hard box. She set it on the table and took a few more bites of her pancakes, swallowing it down with a gulp of coffee before clicking the lever, the box popping open from the top. Though she hadn’t looked up, she was keenly aware of Waverly’s fascination.

“This is my extra hearing aid. It’s bigger than the in-ear that I normally wear, but the battery lasts longer. I think the force of the crash and the weather probably killed my regular one,” she explained as she carefully put the battery into the unit and secured it over her ear, turning the volume up.

Waverly reached her hand across the table and Nicole met it with her own, twining their fingers together. “What’s it like?” she asked hesitantly.

“It’s maddening sometimes, but can also be a refuge. Whenever I need to tune out the world, it’s a few clicks on the volume and I can ignore most everything for a bit. But when it’s imperative that I hear something, it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. I needed to hear over the wind, for animals, for safety when I was making my way back to the Homestead…” she explained then in forthright honesty, “And sometimes I just I yearn to hear things that I never will again…I wanted to hear you when your breathing was shallow against me, when the air fluttered from you just before you came,” she admitted, her voice lowering as she broke eye contact with Waverly, looking down at nothing.

Waverly stood and pulled her chair right beside Nicole, and rubbed her back comfortingly. “But you made love to me and you knew exactly what I needed and when I needed it. Last night was beyond amazing, Nicole,” Waverly paused before continuing, “Besides, I can’t see you...”

Nicole furrowed her brow and finally looked at Waverly again, “What do you  mean?”

“If you are not right here,” she motioned with her hand right in front of her face, “then I can’t see you. I have to rely on how you feel in my hands, just like you do with me.”

Nicole reached her hand out and ran it along the length of Waverly’s thigh, reconnecting to the touch that burned bright in her mind from the night before. “We’re a pair, right?”

“We are,” Waverly confirmed, kissing her cheek. “Now hurry up and finish your breakfast. We’ve got to figure out what to do with your car.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s smart for us to walk back.”

“Me either. We’ll take my Jeep. It’s in the barn.”

* * *

Waverly pulled the cover off the red Jeep in a flourish belying her small stature. A proud smile covered her face and she touched the hood affectionately, “Hi Sweetie, I’ve missed you.”

Nicole looked at the shine both on the car and Waverly’s eyes. “She’s gorgeous. What is she doing here?”

“After I got hurt, I couldn’t drive. It didn’t make sense to leave the Jeep at my condo in Berkeley where I would just pay for it to sit all the time. Wynonna drives it sometimes, but mostly she’s just here. I couldn’t bear to sell her…she was the first thing I bought when I got a ‘real job’ after college.”

“I understand that…” Nicole paused and then asked what had been weighing on her mind for sometime now, one of the few things left hanging in the air between them. “Waverly, why did you decide to teach at the Academy?”

Waverly released a shaky breath, “Is this because you think it’s the best I could do? Accepting my failures by becoming an instructor?”

Nicole’s face fell and she walked over to Waverly, her hands running the length of Waverly’s arms until she grasped her shoulders. “Waverly, I _never_ meant it that way. I was talking about **my** shortcomings, all the things **_I_ ** couldn’t do…all the things I had failed at that had nothing to do with my disability. If you haven’t figured it out yet, well I’m basically in awe of you, Waverly Earp.”

“It probably wouldn’t matter the reason anymore,” Waverly said, pulling away from Nicole, taking a few steps back to mentally soften the blow she worried it would be to their foundling relationship.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m up here to see Wynonna, but I’m also here to talk with the head of a new task force about rejoining Black Badge Division as a researcher,” Waverly confessed.

“Oh…” was Nicole’s initial response.

Waverly took it badly, wringing her hands and moving to open the door to the Jeep, climbing inside and sitting in the driver’s seat. Nicole moved around and followed into the passenger seat. “This is new, you driving and me here,” she kidded before her tone grew more serious, “Hey…I’m all for it.”

“What?”

“If this is what you want, then you should have it, Waverly. You’re basically a genius and they would do well to have you back with BBD,” Nicole reinforced. “Doesn’t mean I won’t miss you…”

“It’s all conjecture until I talk to Agent Holliday and see if this is what Wynonna is implying. Even if it is, I don’t have to take the job…”

Nicole took Waverly’s hand in her own, gripping it tightly, “I want you to be happy, whatever that means, okay?”

“I am happy,” whispered Waverly and Nicole wanted to say how happy she was, wanted to share the joy she had felt that very morning, but she realized she also needed to put forward the same honesty that Waverly had just given, the same she had promised not twelve hours before.

“I have something I need to tell you too, Waverly.”

Waverly squeezed Nicole’s hand in assurance and Nicole continued. “Last night, I moved the whiskey while you were sleeping…”

“I know. That’s fine, Nicole.”

“No, it’s not really…because I thought for a minute that I really wanted a drink. And I can’t have a drink, Waverly. After everything happened, I couldn’t live with the guilt of Ben dying, and I just started drinking more and more and…”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I don’t drink, I can’t drink…”

“But because of Ben?” Waverly interrupted.

“Yes, why would you think otherwise?”

“Well,” Waverly motioned awkwardly to her own ears, “because you’re deaf??”

“What? No. I mean, it’s a real pain in my ass sometimes, but no, that’s…” Nicole stopped and just went through it in her mind, recounting their shared past and all those crucial moments that were misinterpreted, “…you thought that I’m all fucked up because I can’t hear?”

“I…yeah…I just assumed that was it.”

Nicole’s hand pulled away from Waverly’s and she tilted her head up towards the sky, the roof of the barn, the car, just anywhere away from Waverly as she tried to put all the puzzle pieces together and how she had been so obtuse in expressing herself. _I have gotten so good at avoiding what I’ve done that even Waverly can’t see it..._ she realized, her eyes burning as tears pushed forward.

“Oh Waverly, getting hurt is part of the job. I knew that from the moment I signed up to be an officer, especially a bomb tech. But I…” the words stuck in her throat, “…but I…I killed him. I killed Ben and I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. I don’t think I’m supposed to. And I just couldn’t live with it for so long. I drank more and more until I woke up on my front lawn one morning and couldn’t handle being any more fucked up than I already am. So I quit and I…I learned how to live on autopilot. I got a job to pay the bills and I ate enough to sustain a meager existence and I just didn’t talk to anyone about anything because they all knew. They knew I killed Ben and I couldn’t bear to see their faces reflecting the failure I am...that I was until…”

But Waverly had turned in her seat, her hands reaching to hold Nicole’s face tenderly, “Baby, no…,” she started, her thumbs caressing Nicole’s cheeks, brushing the tears away that had begun to fall, “You didn’t kill Ben. The maniac that put that bomb in a school killed Ben. You did the best you could do, Nicole, I know you did because that’s who you are.”

“It’s not…” Nicole said through sobs.

“It **is**. You don’t think I know all about you? I am a researcher and I spent hours learning about your honor and bravery and you’re every bit the hero everyone said you were. Just because you were human too makes you no less the hero that saved everyone in that school, everyone except Ben, and yourself…You were trying so hard to save everyone else that you forgot to save yourself, Nicole.”

“But you came along…”

“I did?”

“You came along to save me, Waverly.”

“No, baby, you did that all by yourself. You just took the long, winding path to get here. And maybe you still need some help? Someone to listen and get you to where you need to be so that you aren’t having nightmares and blaming yourself for Ben’s death, don’t you think?” Waverly asked.

Nicole nodded. Her throat was closed tightly from crying, but she knew that’s what she needed. She had finally admitted to Waverly what had haunted her for so long and yet Waverly was telling her that all she needed was a little more understanding. “Will you wait for me?” Nicole breathed finally.

“Wait for you? I will be with you through this, okay? As long as you’re doing the work, I’ll be there, Nicole,” Waverly assuaged, “on one condition…”

Nicole pulled back, her eyes opening wider, wiping the tears away, terrified of what Waverly might propose.

“No more secrets. If you have a wife or a second job or know how to count cards in Reno, then you better tell me right now!”

Waverly smiled coyly and Nicole understood that she was trying to make light of the commitment she was requiring.

“No more secrets. Definitely no wife, no job other than Uber. I suck at math,” Nicole confirmed, a smile emerging from her face, her dimple on full display, “but I do have one confession…”

“Oh no…”

“I’m pretty sure I know your sister and we didn’t exactly get along the last time we worked together,” Nicole confided as she winced in fear of how Waverly would respond.

Waverly just shook her head, “No one gets along with Wynonna the first time they work together or basically even speak to her. We’ll just ply her with whiskey as soon as she gets here and then casually mention we’re dating. We are dating, right?”

“Babe, we are exclusive,” approved Nicole before diving into a deep, long kiss.

The barn door opened moments later, the sun glancing into the dark recesses of the Jeep’s interior.

“Babygirl, you in here?” Wynonna queried just as she recognized Waverly in the Jeep, making out with a redhead she was immediately sure she disliked. “Oh... and not alone either…” she huffed.

Nicole broke their kiss suddenly when the sheer force of Wynonna’s stare pierced their bubble. Waverly was confused for a second before realizing the look on her sister’s face, and embarrassment began to flood her own. She quickly jumped out of the Jeep, leaving Nicole awkwardly alone, “Hi Sis! I’m glad you finally made it in. Were the roads bad?”

Wynonna narrowed her eyes and finally turned her attention to Waverly instead of the front of the Jeep, “It’s not too bad. Are you taking the Jeep out? I didn’t think…”

“Oh no, no. I mean, yes, but not me. Nicole is. Nicole!” Waverly yelled nervously, whirling around to see her still sitting in the passenger seat, a hand slowly rising to give an embarrassed wave to the sisters.

Wynonna took a few tentative steps closer to the Jeep, peering through the glare of the front, “Is that Nicole Haught?? I thought she…how did you…are you two D A T I N G?”

Waverly pulled her shoulders in and twisted her hands into knots, “Wynonna, we’ve had a…a rough start, but we’re finally getting on track. Be nice to her, please. For me?”

Wynonna looked at Nicole, who finally emerged from the jeep and came to shake her hand cautiously, “It’s good to see you again, Wynonna.”

“Waverly’s schtupping a cop,” was Wynonna’s only retort.

“Actually, Nicole is…she’s not…I mean.”

“I’m on sabbatical,” Nicole gingerly advised.

Waverly whipped around towards Nicole a bit shocked at the new terminology, but shook her head in collusion. “Yes, sabbatical. Because you know she got hurt and she’s…”

“Oh yeah, the bombing at the school. That was you. I don’t know many who could come back from that at all, so good on you,” Wynonna smacked Nicole’s shoulder encouragingly.

Nicole cleared her throat and an awkward silence fell between the three women until Waverly realized what they had started out for originally.

“Nicole’s car is down the road a bit. She had a little run-in with a deer last night and went off the road…”

“That’s how I got the cut on my head,” continued Nicole.

“And why you’re wearing my favorite t-shirt?” Wynonna pointed out, noticing the _Whiskey-Soaked & Reckless _shirt accompanied her heavy parka atop Nicole’s shoulders.

“Her clothes were bloody & I couldn’t leave her in them,” Waverly related.

Wynonna opened her mouth several times to speak, but considered the pleading look Waverly was directing at her, and finally decided to acquiesce. “Come on, I’ll drive and we can pull the car out with the hitch on my truck…”

* * *

With enough digging and sliding through the snow and ice, the three women finally uncovered the Subaru from the snowbank enough to determine it had minor damage, but definitely hadn’t actually hit a deer. The battery was dead, but that was a simple fix and the radiator might be leaking, so they got a tow truck to take it into Purgatory for repairs. Best guess was a couple of days and Waverly immediately told Nicole she was staying, a broad smile of sheer glee at being “stuck” in her hometown together.

Dinner that night was a bit stiff, but Waverly acted as mediator between Wynonna and Nicole. Wynonna just felt she was doing her job as big sister to ensure that Nicole had the right intentions and Waverly just kept wanting her to chill and stop with the Q&A. Finally, Waverly pulled her away from earshot of Nicole and smacked Wynonna’s arm.

“Will you leave my girlfriend alone with your probing questions and your death glares??”

“If she’s got nothing to hide, then she’ll be fine with everything.”

“You asked her who she lost her virginity to, Wynonna!”

“And she didn’t answer! Are you sure she’s a gold star, Waves?” Wynonna defended.

“Look…it’s new, but good...really good. We’ve already been through all this honesty and forthright information stuff, so I just need you to back off and trust me,” Waverly said, exasperated.

Wynonna searched Waverly’s face for a few moments before finally shaking her head, affirming she could do that with a muttered, “yeah, alright, I guess…” and they returned to the kitchen, a well-behaved Wynonna asking Waverly about her appointment with BBD the following day, quietly gauging Nicole’s reaction to what Waverly was willing to say amongst the three of them.

* * *

Wynonna and Waverly sat in silence for a good hour around their bonfire later that night. Nicole had long since turned in, exhausted from everything that had happened since she had arrived, and tradition called for only high flames and whiskey between them.

“Doc told me he’s making you come into the office tomorrow to discuss the new position,” Wynonna started.

Waverly shifted from where she’d been staring absently into the flames. “He told me that it would be more professional since this is a permanent offer and not just a contract for the task force.”

“I’m glad BBD is stepping up. You deserve to be on this task force, deserve to be an agent again in perpetuity.”

“I can never be in the field again, not unsecured. I feel like they’re going to make concessions for me and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that,” admitted Waverly.

“People get hurt every day and continue to serve. You’re still an officer, Waverly, this is just a new opportunity. You should take it.”

“It’s not me I’m so worried about, Wynonna. If my disability led to another agent or officer getting hurt, I’m not sure I could live with myself. I’ve seen the way guilt has destroyed people even when it wasn’t their fault…”

“Are we talking about Red? Her ‘sabbatical’…”

“Yeah, about…” but Waverly changed course, “She feels responsible for the boy that died in the bombing and I’m not sure anything will ever change that.”

“And you’re afraid that something like that is going to happen if you take this job?”

“No matter how hard I worked to get back, that night at the crackhouse, when I almost got myself and John Henry and…” Waverly took in a short breath, Wynonna’s name on the tip of her tongue, “…I thought I was a goner and I had put my entire team at risk. I wouldn’t have wanted to live with that and so I can understand, in a way, what Nicole has dealt with.”

“You’re never going to be in that position again, babygirl. Doc has set up the team so that you’re always safe _and_ we get the best,” she grinned, leaning over and handing Waverly the whiskey bottle after taking a swig.

Waverly took it readily and swallowed a couple of shots worth down, feeling it warm her cheeks almost as much as the fire. It burned slightly in her stomach and her mind drifted to the other reasonably small reason she might not take this job. She handed the bottle back to Wynonna and attempted to distract them both.

“So you and Doc?”

“He’s such an asshole.”

“Oh, so it’s gotten serious between you two. I did notice some decidedly western shirts in your room, not really your style, but wasn’t sure if I should attribute them to you allowing John Henry temporary residence while I’m away in the city.”

“He’s really good around the house. He chops wood and mends the fence and he can actually grill a pretty good steak, and…”

“He keeps you warm at night?” Waverly queried, a smile blossoming on her face, finally realizing that Wynonna was so close to revealing her true feelings.

“I think asshole covers it,” she deflected.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him, and I’d be fine with him being here at the Homestead too, Wy.”

“When you take this job and move back, and we have free time in between assignments, then I’m sure we’ll have him over for supper.”

“It’s a lot to consider…taking this job, moving from Berkeley and leaving everything I’ve built there over the last year. When you mentioned it, I thought it was just for taking down the cartel, but once I spoke to Doc, he intimated it was permanent, for as long as I wanted to be with BBD. And that means being available to work wherever the assignment is. I mean, it’s hard to lay down roots when it’s six weeks in Seattle, then a month in El Paso, then an assignment for who knows how long on the East Coast.”

Wynonna took the bottle back from Waverly and took several swallows before coming up with the least offensive reply, “But we’re going to be doing it together. We have a great team, the originals are going to be riding again…and we’ll all come home and it won’t feel like you’re alone.”

“But what if…what if that’s not enough anymore, Wynonna?” Waverly ventured.

“Is this about Haught stuff? You told me it was new…”

“It is, but it’s just…I can’t explain it, but I feel like, if I let her go, I’m never going to feel this way again. I’m missing my chance to have a great life with her,” Waverly admitted. “It was one thing to ask her to wait while we worked the Bulshar case, but this is life-altering, taking the new position.”

“I used to be the reluctant one in law enforcement for this family. Now you’re telling me that you want something more than taking down the bad guys? It’s almost like you were breaking curses, the fervor you had for the cases we took on, Waverly. I just don’t see that dying out of you. If I thought you didn’t have the desire to do this anymore, I wouldn’t have suggested you come back.”

“I do, Wynonna. I want Bulshar and I want all the criminals that come after him and I want to kick ass at doing what it takes to apprehend them, but I just…justice doesn’t keep me warm at night anymore.”

“And Bonus Blanket upstairs does…” Wynonna concluded.

“The night you called and I agreed to discuss this opportunity further, well, I had found out some really shitty things about Nicole. I was reeling and I just felt like this was going to be my answer to the hurt and disillusionment. I didn’t want to trust anyone, and I still can’t believe I’m going to, but I have to give her a chance now. She’s done nothing since that day to make me believe she’ll betray me and…if I take this job, it would destroy any hope I have of a future with her.”

Wynonna pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her forehead, “Babygirl, you’re the best and anyone would be lucky to get to wait for you, and if Haughtshit doesn’t know that, then it’s her loss. I don’t want you to regret not rejoining BBD... especially if she doesn’t work out. No one is worth that, Waves.”

And Waverly shook her head in acknowledgement, if not agreement, because she couldn’t stand the nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, Nicole was worth everything she might be willing to give up.

* * *

Nicole woke up alone the next morning and it took her a few moments to recognize her surroundings and recall what the plan was for the day. She changed quietly, new clothes they had picked up for her in Purgatory the day before, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She saw the coffeemaker had been left with an almost full pot and made herself a cup, turning as she took the first sip.

“Make yourself at home,” Wynonna growled.

Nicole coughed harshly and nearly dropped the mug, twisting around wildly to find Wynonna sitting at the table, where she had definitely not been when Nicole entered the kitchen moments earlier.

“Jesus, Wynonna. You don’t even have to try and sneak up on me. I’m deaf so you would’ve scared the shit out of me anyway!”

Wynonna pulled her head back and considered Nicole’s admission. “You’re deaf? Waverly didn’t tell me that you…but you could hear me just now and…” her mental checks and balances displayed as she pointed fingers between them.

Nicole set the mug down on the table and then took a chair before finally explaining. “I lost all my hearing in the left ear and over half in my right ear from the explosion, but I wear a hearing aid, so I do okay most times. But you came in on what I call, ironically, my blind side, so you scared the ever-livin’ shit out of me, ya see?”

“Your blind side. I see what you did there, Haught.”

“Waverly…”

“You two are a pair,” snorted Wynonna.

A smile broke on Nicole’s face, remembering, “Your sister said the same and I completely agree.”

“You care about her? This isn’t some casual thing, is it?”

“It’s anything but casual. Waverly made space in her heart for me, despite how fucked up I’ve been for a very long time, and I’m working really hard to make sure she knows it was worth it. I love her, Wynonna.”

Wynonna looked away, faking distraction at what Nicole had just laid on the table, almost literally. “You better…”

* * *

At the same time Waverly sat across from John Henry Holliday and they both acted very professional despite the sly smiles that crept across their faces with every other pertinent question about the impending formation of the Bulshar task force.

“So you see, _Ms. Earp_ , we highly respect the distinguished career you had with our agency previously and would like to offer you a new, permanent position as a researcher. The first assignment will be a cross-border task force focusing on the apprehension of cartel leader Bulshar. Of course, we would offer your full-vested tenure and a pay raise with...” he stopped and scribbled down a figure, sliding over to Waverly, “…sufficient compensation, I believe you will find.”

Waverly casually glanced down at the figure and squeaked slightly at the amount scrawled on the slip. It was serious money for a researcher; this task force meant business. She had already started independent research and knew the millions, if not billions, that Bulshar’s cartel was filtering through the US and Canada and most likely several other countries, in human-trafficking, drugs, and other commodities. Even when they took down Bulshar, it would be years of wrapping up all the channels in his empire. It was career-making to be the lead researcher on a task force like this. It would be almost impossible to say no.

So why was she a bit hesitant to accept the job? Sure, the Academy was fulfilling. It was safe. She had a routine, a schedule, a purpose. But this purpose? This new opportunity could be life-altering. It might be her last chance to be an essential member of a team without her disability limiting her impact. How could she say no? _Is this really for me? What about Nicole? I don’t want to lose her and I don’t want to leave her. I’m in love with her and…_ and that’s what Waverly wanted deep down. Waverly wanted to be in love; she wanted to be with Nicole and she just didn’t see how this task force was going to make that a possibility.

“Doc. It’s truly a dream job…” she started.

“Then say yes, Waverly,” John Henry cajoled.

“I just want to be absolutely certain. Give me a few days because I would have to get my affairs in order at minimum.”

“We go live in six weeks. Can you just let me know in time to find a distant second to your superior skills if for some reason you cannot join us?” Doc asked kindly.

“Absolutely. I will let you know well before then,” Waverly said as she stood, Doc rising afterward and reaching out his hand in agreement, which Waverly took, pulling him into a warm hug. “It is so good to see you again, Doc. No matter what, promise me you’ll take care of Wynonna? You’re the only one she’d even let try.”

“You have my word, Waverly.”

Waverly placed a light kiss to Doc’s cheek, tickled by his elaborate mustache, and swiftly carted her coat and bag out with her offer so that her emotions did not get the better of her, either for the job or Wynonna, and especially not for Nicole.

* * *

That night Waverly had the first nightmare she had been prisoner to in quite some time. In every moment of the dream, Nicole was walking away, or already gone. Or worse, Waverly was leaving Nicole, desolate and forlorn, both of them in unspoken agony. She tossed and turned fitfully until she was drawn to consciousness by Nicole, soft in her ear, arms wrapped around her protectively, shushing her gently.

“Hush baby, I’ve got you. It’s okay,” she whispered gently, a slight rock to her hold on Waverly, as she waited patiently. Waverly fed off the soft, warm touch and balm of Nicole’s voice, soothing her into relief. Her breathing slowed and she relaxed against Nicole’s body again.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. Bad dream?”

“Yeah…”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“No, but can you just hold me a little longer?” Waverly asked hesitantly.

“I can hold you all night, Waves.”

And that should have been enough, but a switch flipped in Waverly at that moment, and she tilted Nicole’s chin down to where she could look into her eyes for affirmation. “We’re in this, right?”

“Right,” like the easiest thing Nicole had ever said, Waverly surmised.

“I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want you to go anywhere,” Waverly stated.

“I’m not going anywhere, Waverly.”

Waverly pressed her lips hard against Nicole’s, but before Nicole could return the gesture, she moved quickly, warm lips on her neck, down her chest, flushing red with desire, a flurry rising and falling with soft pants as Nicole was suddenly very overwhelmed with what Waverly was drawing from her without any real effort.

Waverly was just always going to set her afire, Nicole determined, and so she just relinquished her body with a slow moan as Waverly pressed her into the mattress. “Never enough,” she mumbled.

Waverly paused, her hands and mouth stilling, her breath trickling over Nicole’s breasts…”What’s never enough?”

“You. I will never have enough of you, Waverly,” Nicole conceded.

Waverly smiled, her fingers pressing in against Nicole, and then she continued with her kisses, relishing Nicole’s comfort and warmth beneath her. Black Badge was going to have to find another researcher because she was never going to have enough of Nicole Haught either.

* * *

Nicole pulled up in front of the Homestead in the Subaru, a little banged up but no worse for the wear. Wynonna stood on the porch, Waverly nowhere to be seen, as Nicole killed the engine and exited the car.

“Waverly is finishing packing,” Wynonna explained.

“We’re not in any hurry.”

“Haught?”

“Yes, Wynonna…”

“You better take care of her. She gives off this illusion she totally has her shit together and she needs no one, but we both know, she just doesn’t trust most people,” Wynonna casually related as she stepped off the porch..

“I’m trying my damndest to earn her trust,” Nicole verified as she started to walk towards the Homestead and Wynonna.

“And make sure she does what’s right for her. She should take this job with BBD, she shouldn’t be staying behind because of you…” Wynonna clarified as they came to stand toe to toe.

“I’ve already told her as much,” Nicole said, holding her own.

“If what you two have is, ya know, real or whatever,” she coughed, “then you’ll make it work,” Wynonna finished.

“It’s real, Wynonna. I’ll make sure she takes the job if it’s what she wants and I’ll get my shit together too…come off of sabbatical…”

“Dolls told me you quit, but if you’re telling Waverly that’s what this is, then you need to come clean with her before this goes any further.”

“No, she knows…I just didn’t want her to have to explain my failure…my shortcomings when we first talked in the barn. I’m going to see what the department has available, if there’s something I could do of use for the police force.”

“When we were on the Jack case and Waverly got hurt, I never thought she would wake up, let alone be as well as she is, as capable as her life has become. If she can come from that far out, you…I know how you handled the work you did for us, precise and focused, near perfection…you’ll have a place with any good law enforcement agency that’s smart enough to hire you,” Wynonna encouraged.

“I won’t even tell Waverly you’re being nice to me; you can keep your hardass persona.”

The both looked past each others shoulders in silence for a few moments. Finally the front door pushed open, Waverly dragging her suitcase behind her. Nicole loaded it in the Subaru while she and Wynonna said their goodbyes quietly.

“So when do you have to let Doc know about the job?”

“I told him a few days. I’ve about made up my mind though, so probably tomorrow when I’m settled back in the city,” Waverly clarified.

Wynonna studied Waverly’s face and saw the answer there, “You shouldn’t miss this because of the redhead, Waves.”

“I’m not, Wy, but I’m not about to miss out on happiness either. For once I’m going to trust that that is enough.”

 


	10. leave a legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It wasn’t until I thought about taking this job that I felt like, was terrified by, the thought that I needed you. And I don’t need you to be anything or do anything or even change anything. What I realized I needed most was just for you to love me. To love me safe and reckless at the same time. I’ve never wanted to do this with anyone until I met you. And every single day since I got in your goddamn Subaru, I’ve just wanted you to be a part of my life. A year ago, if someone would have asked, being a researcher with BBD again would have been my ultimate goal and now…when I think about what I want to do most in the world…it’s you.”

Nicole stood outside the door, flowers in hand, still somehow nervous at what awaited her on the other side. She pushed the doorbell anyway and Waverly opened the door within two seconds, looking carefully from side to side, then grabbed Nicole’s blazer and pulled her in for a heated kiss. Nicole awkwardly pressed the bouquet of flowers into Waverly’s back, trying to keep her balance as the kiss quickly elevated into a full-on makeout session complete with light grinding against the doorframe, before Nicole somehow recalled their original agenda.

“Condo…you’re going to show me your condo, Waves,” she panted, pulling the flowers in between their bodies and smiling crookedly. “I know you won’t be here but another few weeks, but it’s still your home.”

Waverly focused solely on the yellow roses and then pulled Nicole into another kiss before finally releasing her and acknowledging the flowers, “These are beautiful, Nic…come in, I’ll put them in water.”

Waverly turned and headed towards what Nicole assumed was the kitchen, leaving her to trail behind. She walked slowly into the foyer and admired the simple, but elegant decor. A imperial-style Chinese vase sat beside a traditional high table with trays for keys and mail. The pathway to the kitchen, and remainder of the house, was unobstructed and direct. Nicole admired how Waverly had purposefully sought out a home that would bend into her limitations instead of having to work around, much like Nicole had done after her incident. She made a mental note to go through and organize everything meticulously and create clean thoroughfares so that Waverly would have no concerns navigating her house. She knew it wouldn’t be often, especially with Waverly starting the Bulshar task force soon, but in whatever time they had together, she was going to ensure Waverly knew her importance in Nicole’s life.

She was lost in thoughts of how to arrange the main living areas when Waverly returned from the kitchen with a glass of wine for herself and a water for Nicole. “This okay?”

“This is great, babe,” Nicole confirmed, kissing Waverly’s cheek. “Show me around?”

Waverly took Nicole’s hand gently and guided them through the small but beautiful condo, noting specific art or furniture when Nicole commented on it. They had been back in Berkeley a few days and were learning how to navigate their new status as a couple, going to dinner and trying to slowly work out some of the more trying issues that had deterred them until now. It was hard to hold back their desires with the  electricity between them, but both knew they needed to build a foundation, especially after the way everything had started out.

“And this is the bedroom…” Waverly pronounced as she clutched Nicole’s hand a little tighter, pulling her closer as they walked across the threshold.

“I love the blue…was that an intentional choice?”

“I actually just changed this a few months ago. I was really inspired by how blue looks on a particular redhead,” explained Waverly, “and I made it my mission to see how she would look in my bed.”

“And how did she look?” Nicole asked curiously.

Waverly took the glass from Nicole and set it and her wineglass on the table nearest the door, then turned and ran a finger down the front of Nicole’s button-down before splaying each hand against her ribs, pushing the blazer off from inside and pulling Nicole towards her in one swift movement.

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll tell you in the morning,” Waverly said decidedly before leaning in, awaiting Nicole’s lips and her acceptance that they were done talking for the evening.

* * *

Nicole ran her fingers lazily through Waverly’s hair, the brunette laying in her arms, their bodies satiated. Nicole thought this is what bliss must be like. She felt so good lately, so happy, but she wanted to be better…she wanted to do whatever it took…for Waverly.

“I made an appointment with the same clinic at Alta Bates that Chrissy referred you to last year,” Nicole mentioned, trying to sound casual.

Waverly caught her breath for just a split second because she understood intimately what that moment was like, acknowledging you needed help, then asking for it purposefully.

“Nic…I…I think it’ll be really good for you. I want you to always know you can talk to me…”

“I do, but I need to talk to someone else, a professional.”

“Someone who will help you understand that Ben…” Waverly stopped because she didn’t want to say what Nicole always did,  _that she killed Ben_ , and for so many reasons.

“That I didn’t kill Ben,” Nicole confirmed in such a low whisper she could barely be heard, “That’s what is in my head, but in my heart, it’s different…”

“I know, baby. That takes a lot longer to heal than anything physical,” Waverly acknowledged, hugging Nicole closer to her.

* * *

Three days later at Sunday brunch, Waverly was finishing her tofu scramble when Nicole poked her fork towards her and finally asked what she’d been considering since that night at the condo.

“What would you think of me buying your condo?”

Waverly nearly choked and guzzled half of the glass of water that had come with breakfast before she finally made eye contact with Nicole, who was aghast at the reaction she had elicited.

“I mean, I guess not? It was just an idea…”

“What makes you think I’m selling my condo?”

“When you finalize the position with BBD, you’ll be working out of San Francisco, but who knows how long this task force is going to take, apprehending Bulshar…so I figured you’d sell. Why have a house you don’t even live in?” Nicole continued cautiously, “and you furnished it in the way that serves you best, and I could make minimal changes to accommodate my hearing deficit and then it would…ya know…work best for both of us.”

“Oh…” Waverly realized with a smile how Nicole was trying to offer the best solution for their future and it touched her deeply.

“I could buy it, we wouldn’t have to own it together or anything, I don’t mean to assume we’re…I haven’t even said I lov —“

“Let’s just take it one step at a time,” Waverly interrupted. “I haven’t even told BBD what I’m doing yet.”

“What’s there to tell? I mean, you want that contract signed before you put the condo on the market though, I understand that.”

“Right now, I just really want to get to the farmers market before all of the fresh zucchini is gone, so are you ready to go?” Waverly deflected, hurriedly standing and gathering her handbag.

“Yeah, uh, let me get the bill…” Nicole replied, bemused.

* * *

Waverly twisted the loose ends of a ponytail around her fingers as she waited for Nicole to answer the phone. It rang several times and then went to voicemail. She hung up without leaving a message. She puttered around the house, straightening up things and moving back to her desk where she made a list of things to do for the week. She purposely didn’t include contacting BBD;  she wasn’t ready yet. She stared at the remaining lines until the phone rang, breaking her out of a trance.

“Hi, sweetie!”

“Hi cutie pie, are you coming over tonight?”

“I’m actually working, Waves…I got the all clear from the mechanic and I need to take some shifts or I’m going to get behind on bills,” Nicole confessed.

“Oh…well, I guess if I want to see you, I can just request a pickup,” she intoned with deliberately salacious want.

“Ha, cute, Waves. I’m over near the college for the weekend so that I can hopefully make enough to enjoy some time with you before you leave for the border. Have they set a date yet?”

“Uh…not yet…probably soon,” Waverly dismissed.

“Oh there’s a fare now. I’ll text you, okay? Bye darlin!”

And with that and a click, Nicole dropped the call into silence, Waverly sighing in loneliness and boredom.

* * *

Monday rolled around slowly and Waverly was ecstatic when Nicole arrived at her condo, flowers in hand as usual, kisses on the front stoop, and then she was pulling Waverly down the steps towards the Subaru.

“I thought we would stay in and watch a movie and I’d make dinner,” Waverly offered

“I thought we would go out and celebrate your new job, Waves. I’m so proud of you and I wanted to show you a special night,” enthused Nicole.

Waverly looped her arms in Nicole’s and pressed their hips together, “I know other ways you can show me a special night, Ms. Haught.”

“Did you miss me?” Nicole asked, peppering kisses down Waverly’s neck to her collar.

“I did…now come inside with me and let’s celebrate naked,” she begged as she turned to walk back up towards the door, dragging Nicole with her.

“So you finally said yes??”

“Soon, so no reason to celebrate just yet…”

Nicole stopped, abruptly halting Waverly’s guidance back towards the house, and crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing, come on,” Waverly attempted to take Nicole’s hand, but she tucked it further against her side.

“No, you’ve had over two weeks and you still haven’t called Doc and taken the job. What gives?”

Waverly turned and rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. Her hands fell to her hips, supporting her words more than any action.

“I’m not going to take it.”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s the right job for me.”

Nicole laughed at the idea, “Are you kidding?”

“I really like what I’m doing at the Academy and…”

“Bullshit. Why are you not taking this job, Waves?”

“I don’t…it’s not…I can’t…”

“You can’t what? Because this is your dream job from what I can tell. It’s a chance to have a new career with the agency that you made yourself walk away from a year ago.”

“But — “

“No, Waverly. I’m sorry, but you’re being ridiculous if you don’t take this opportunity and run with it. They’ve offered you a dream, made every effort to accommodate your requirements, hell, your basic  **needs**  as a person with disabilities. Why in god’s name would you even wait to say yes?”

“Nicole it’s not that simple, I want to be happy and…”

“This wouldn’t make you happy? This would make me the happiest person ever. Do you know what I would give to have a chance to live my dream again, Waverly? I would give everything to go back to being a bomb tech and working towards being Chief, and having my LIFE again…You don’t want your  **_life_ **  back, Waverly? Because I sure as hell would.”

Waverly took a sharp breath in at the realization that Nicole’s dream didn’t include her. _Nicole’s dream is just to be a person without limitations again, to be the officer who would be Chief someday, who had political aspirations and a career, not a relationship or marriage or anything personal,_ concluded Waverly.

“No, I just thought until this moment that I wanted you more, Nicole,” she said simply and began to walk down the sidewalk to nowhere in particular, to anywhere other than where Nicole remained in stunned silence.

But it wasn’t two minutes later that Nicole came up behind her and took her by the elbow, trying to slow her down, stop her. “Waves, wait…wait, please.”

“No, you wait! You are never happy and you cause yourself that pain. I am here and I’m ready to give you everything and more. And you just keep acting like nothing is ever enough. But you walked away. You gave up on your dreams, Nicole. You could’ve worked at the Academy - you could’ve been teaching at least. What makes you think you can’t have a career that leads to the things you want? You just accept that your disability prohibits you from achieving the same things that every able-bodied person would. Because you’re deaf? Because you’re not a bomb tech? Why don’t you try educating people on how not to make the same mistakes as you??”

“I’m sorry, but are you living in the same world I am? Because as far as I know, we’ve never had a deaf police chief or mayor or any other elected official!”

“Well why don’t you try and be the first?! Has that ever occurred to you, Nicole Haught? That maybe you could be the first. SOMEONE HAS TO BE THE FIRST.” Waverly spat.

“And who will be the first at Black Badge? If you’re not the one who shows them that they can have someone in the field with a disability and still be completely successful. That they can take down a cartel, a motherfucking CARTEL, Waverly. They want YOU to do that. They need  **_YOU_ **. And you’re here pissing away your chance and I don’t even know why.”

Waverly shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t know why?”

“No, I don’t know why. And what makes you think that I’m not finally going to do something? I’m not just working all this time we’re not together. I’ve been making phone calls and trying to figure out where I could get my foot back in the door. When I realized I could have you, Waverly…that you made me see that I was enough. You made me want more. Learning how to unburden myself from the guilt of killing Ben…”

Waverly looked at Nicole warily, “You didn’t —“

“I didn’t...” Nicole swallowed hard, but continued much to her own disbelief,  _“I didn’t kill him._  He died and I have to live with that, and I’m trying. I’m getting help to learn how to deal with that because of you, Waverly. You made me see that there is something in the future. And it might not be what I thought it could, but…” Nicole reached out to take Waverly’s hand, “…but what if I find out it’s even better?”

“What if it’s not?”

“What if it  **_is_ **?” Nicole rejoined.

“I can’t promise that. I can’t be the thing you hinge your life on, Nicole…”

Nicole dropped Waverly’s hand.

“You shouldn’t count on me, Nicole. Obviously I’m not making the right decisions when I’m leading with my heart.”

And with that Waverly turned and walked into the cold, dark night.

* * *

Nicole sat outside Waverly’s condo for two hours. She tried calling and texting to no avail. She wanted to give Waverly space, but she also wanted to run after her, make Waverly see that she could trust her, trust their love. Finally, she drove slowly home.

Nicole’s house, a mere three minutes from Waverly’s condo, felt like an ocean apart. And it was deafeningly silent, she noted ironically. She tossed the keys into the dish at the door, on the new table. She looked up at the clean lines, at plants she was somehow keeping alive despite her black thumb. She noticed how neat and organized she had become in an effort to ensure Waverly felt safe and at home, despite the fact she’d only been in Nicole’s house a scant few times.

The silence was broken by the doorbell, the lights flickering in unison, in confirmation. Nicole turned and opened it, almost distracted from her ominous thoughts over Waverly by the idea that someone could be visiting at this particular moment.

Waverly stood in the doorway. Her face was tear-stained and she clasped her hands together, her chest heaving with anticipation…fear…something Nicole couldn’t quite place.

“I’m in love with you, Nicole.”

“I’m in…”

“No, let me finish,” Waverly interrupted. Nicole pressed her lips closed purposefully because it was really hard not to say what she wanted to say every damn time Waverly stopped her.

“I’m in love with you, Nicole. And I have stood under the assumption that you needed me, well, since the beginning…”

“I do need you.”

Waverly brandished a steely look towards Nicole and she quickly muted herself so that Waverly could continue.

“It wasn’t until I thought about taking this job that I felt like, was terrified by, the thought that I needed you. And I don’t need you to be anything or do anything or even change anything. What I realized I needed most was just for you to love me. To love me safe and reckless at the same time. I’ve never wanted to do this with anyone until I met you. And every single day since I got in your goddamn Subaru, I’ve just wanted you to be a part of my life. A year ago, if someone would have asked, being a researcher with BBD again would have been my ultimate goal and now…when I think about what I want to do most in the world…it’s you.”

Nicole couldn’t help but smirk at the announcement, the way Waverly had just stuttered through her wild reasoning for not immediately accepting the position with Black Badge. She reached out to Waverly, brushing the last tear off her cheek, and began a long, slow kiss of reconciliation. Only when they could no longer find a breath of air in their lungs did they break the connection.

“Waverly, I love you…” is all Nicole whispered.

They stood there a few moments, their lungs burning until oxygen returned to their bodies, holding hands, heads leaning against each other, before Nicole turned quietly and led them inside. She sat Waverly down on the sofa and then took a seat beside her, turning in and tucking one leg under her knee, offering Waverly her full attention.

“I love you, Waverly. You don’t have to choose. My love isn’t conditional and there isn’t an expiration date on it. You could be in Tokyo and I would love you the same amount as I do with you right here beside me, maybe more. Distance isn’t going to affect my devotion to you. If anything, it will make us stronger. I want to touch you and hold you and make love to you and when we are together, we will do all those things. And when we’re not, we’ll spend every moment we can learning each other, until I know you and you know me profoundly. I’ve got so much to discover about you, and I’m willing to spend my whole life doing it, okay?”

Waverly nodded and squeezed Nicole’s hand. Nicole could see the wheels turning in her mind, trying to rationalize everything that had led them to this moment.

“I could be gone for months. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call or we’ll be able to see each other. That’s just to get the big bad. After Bulshar, we’ve got all of his henchmen, and they’re spread all over the country, the continent. I shouldn’t ask you to wait, Nicole.”

“I want to wait. You’re worth waiting for, Waverly. So, we’ll have to get creative and maybe there will be more phone sex than actual sex…” Nicole stopped to figure out where to go in trying to convince Waverly this was the right decision, but there wasn’t anything. It all came down to...

“Waverly, you have to trust me. I know it’s hard and I’d done everything opposite of earning your trust initially, but I will never ever betray you again and I will do everything in my power to make you believe that.”

Nicole thought she was making headway. She thought she was getting through to Waverly, convincing her that they could make it, but she could see the hope dwindling from her eyes even in this moment and before Nicole could make another effort to save them, Waverly stood and smoothed down her blouse, clearing her throat.

“Okay, but I’m not going to keep you from having a life and just leave you waiting endlessly for me to come back. That’s not fair, Nicole, and I could never hold you back from…” Waverly didn’t even know what, but this made the most sense somehow in a hazy view of her future. She took a few quick steps towards the front door, never making eye contact with a stunned Nicole. “I should go…”

But Nicole was over Waverly’s nonsensical reactions. She was over Waverly dictating her future implausible actions and emotions. She stood and swiftly followed Waverly to the door, taking a firm grip to her arm and turning her around so that they were face to face.

“No, you don’t get to do this anymore, Waverly Earp. I am in love with you and you are in love with me…”

“I’m not…” Waverly denied.

“ **_YOU ARE_ ** .  Sometimes it’s exhausting and frustrating as hell, but you are it for me. So I am going to be here, waiting for you to trust me, for eternity, if that’s what it takes, but I am going to be here,” cried Nicole. “I don’t know what else to say to you because I’m over playing it cool and acting like this isn’t the most important thing that will ever happen to me. I can’t bear to watch you walk away from me ever again and I am  _never_  walking away from you. I don’t need to figure it all out tonight, I just listen to my heart and it needs you. I need you —“

And before Nicole could continue her diatribe, Waverly reached for her, hands hot on her cheeks, pulling her down to Waverly’s mouth, her tongue pushing inside, trying to capture Nicole’s words, mixing with the salty tears that poured down both of their faces, whimpers escaping as they fell into a long, possessive kiss.

Finally, Waverly broke their contact just slightly, her thumb tracing Nicole’s swollen lips, “I need you too. I am so, so in love with you and I can’t bear to live without you anymore. And that terrifies me because everything outside this moment is pushing us apart. “

“No, baby, everything is drawing us together.”

“What?” Waverly genuinely wondered. She had never seen it this way, never even considered Nicole viewed it differently than she had.

“In the world where we had been for literally years…I would have never been driving Uber and you wouldn’t have needed a ride. We would be in our quaint, shallow worlds of perfect careers and with people we didn’t belong to. It’s easier for me to believe that there’s no cosmic plan for this life, but if there is, that plan is for you and me to be side by side. I don’t need a reason to be deaf other than it was so that when the moment finally came, I had no choice but to only hear your heart. Waverly, where you go, I go.”

And Nicole just waited, with hope filling her eyes.

“I hear you too, Nicole.” Waverly finally whispered.

“You do?”

“I do.”

And then Waverly was kissing Nicole again, stealing the very air from her lungs, claiming her. And Nicole would let Waverly take her very soul if she wanted it, let her take the heart from her chest and dice it into fine pieces. But Waverly was as gentle with her heart now as she was with the fine hairs at her neck that she stroked with the lightest touch, this one thing delicately balancing the full and complete captivity that Waverly held over her otherwise.

Waverly looked away briefly, fully aware of where they were for probably the first time in her life, what they meant to each other. Then she took Nicole’s hand and looked deeply into her eyes, a promise, “I’m going to take you to bed now and then we’re going to talk about tomorrow.”

Waverly guided Nicole to her room and sat her down on the edge of the bed. She loved the advantage of standing over Nicole, empowering her a bit more than she was accustomed to. The newness of their intimacy would have scared her in past relationships, but she felt emboldened by her desire for Nicole.

She pulled the shirt from Nicole’s body, Nicole a willing participant, game for whatever Waverly wanted in this moment, her body leaning back, weight on her arms, palms against the mattress as Waverly skimmed her fingers up the full length of Nicole’s torso, past her bra, to her collarbone and behind her ears into the wavy red hair, pulling Nicole’s lips up to hers in a passionate kiss.

Leaving her mouth hot against Nicole’s, her hands slid back down the length of Nicole’s body to her jeans, popping open the button and unzipping the fly, her hands pulling open the denim and pressing against a hip. Nicole hissed in anticipation, but didn’t say a word.

“Are you just going to let me have my way with you?” Waverly asked against Nicole’s lips.

“If it means we have tomorrow to discuss, you can do with me what you will…” confirmed Nicole, a moan drawn from deep in her throat as Waverly’s hands moved featherlight under her jaw.

Waverly unpinned her hair, letting it fall in her face, as her head tilted down to locate the zipper of her skirt, untucking her blouse and pulling them both off hurriedly. Nicole revelled in the view that came into focus, Waverly standing in lace panties and a matching bra for mere seconds before she shimmied out of those as well, fully and completely naked in front of the woman she loved, a sacrifice.

Nicole’s tongue ran along her lips in anticipation, a sly smile emerging from her solemn gaze, and she couldn’t bear not to touch Waverly any longer, a hand starting at the outside of her knee, angling in, circling up her inner thigh to the V of soft, short curls, one lone finger trailing through them, damp as it traced up to Waverly’s stomach, a shiver emanating from her body.

“You are perfect…” Nicole appraised.

“I thought I was taking  _you_  to bed,” Waverly questioned.

“Babe, if you don’t know what you’re doing to me now…” Nicole intimated, her hips lifting off the mattress slightly.

Waverly took that as invitation, wrapping her hands around the back of Nicole’s neck, she slid her thigh in between Nicole’s legs and laid them back on the bed, their bodies coming together in perfect symmetry. The pressure was already building low in their bellies and barely a touch had taken place, but the fire was so deep, so encompassing.

Waverly flexed her thigh against Nicole, grunts precipitating after only a few short moments, Nicole quickly building to a hard climax against her. But Waverly didn’t let her slow or rest, sliding inside the open jeans, her fingers circling Nicole’s clit causing a staccato of groans and small ripples of continual pleasure, a build before she rewarded Nicole and curled fingers into her core. Desperate to have more of her, she fitfully pushed Nicole’s jeans and boy shorts down her legs, leaving her captive to the ministrations of Waverly’s hand, her fingers drawing taut the coil of heat from deep inside.

Nicole couldn’t wait any longer and she slid her hand between their bodies, gasping at the wetness that greeted her as she pushed two fingers inside Waverly. “For me already?”  And all Waverly answered with was a shuddering breath pushed against her shoulder as they began a slow, deliberate rhythm, twisting inside each other, laced obscenities of love and lust uttered as they both refused to come without the other.

“I can’t…any longer…” Nicole finally relinquished, and she cried as she came hard, her entire body shaking into Waverly’s. The release plummeting Waverly into oblivion herself, her entire body pulsing with ecstasy as she shouted something foreign and obscure to Nicole.

They lay motionless against each other for endless moments after that, their bodies sated, their hearts and minds light and free. Slowly Waverly began to place soft, warm kisses along the expanse of Nicole’s shoulders, against her neck, elevating towards her ear and Waverly whispered words against it, as she had before, in what she had once considered a moment of weakness, but what she now realized had been great strength.

Nicole’s body stilled completely as Waverly’s mouth moved against the back of her ear, a devotion to learning, to listening, even though Waverly felt it impossible. And then Nicole was running her hand along Waverly’s jaw, drawing Waverly’s eyes to her own, tears in the corners. “I know, baby, I love you too. I love you so so much.”

The surprise and awe with which Waverly realized that somehow Nicole could hear her was overwhelming and she shook her head in disbelief, attempting to look away. But Nicole held her with both hand and heart, and she acquiesced to both. “I didn’t know it was possible…”

“A physical phenomenon, your extraordinary way to speak to me. It moves through the bones of my ear and I can only hear…you. I can only hear you and the words of your heart, Waverly….we are made for each other.”

* * *

The next morning Waverly pushed her lips against the back of Nicole’s ear again with a mischievous request only to receive an unwelcome retort, “I can’t do that again until I have sustenance…”

Waverly laid open-mouthed kisses against Nicole’s bare back, her head dipping beneath the cover to circle round to her ribs and lower, a sharp inhale from Nicole before she flung the covers off of them, revealing Waverly’s tongue as it swept over the light bite she had just inflicted on Nicole’s hip. “That’s not what I meant, Waves,” she chuckled.

“I just don’t want to get up and leave the rapture of this bed,” whined Waverly, as she climbed back up Nicole’s slender frame and settled in the crook of her arm, laying her head on her chest.

“You have to call Doc,” instructed Nicole.

“I will…today,” Waverly assured, kissing Nicole’s jaw before settling back against her shoulder.

Nicole held Waverly tightly against her and solemnly spoke, “I didn’t mean what I said last night. I wouldn’t give up everything to be a bomb tech again, or even Chief. I was just trying to be outlandish enough that you would understand what it seemed like to me. It felt like you would be giving away so much to be with me, Waverly.”

“You made sure that I understood, but I don’t have to give up anything.”

“You don’t. I’m not going anywhere. I want you to do this, for yourself, both of us honestly. I’m so fucking proud of you,” Nicole admired.

“I’m proud of you too. I know it’s hard to face your demons and rejoin the force, especially if they can’t offer you anything much to start.”

“When you said that someone had to be the first…well, you put that idea in my head months ago. I just kept fighting it. I was scared to think I’m strong enough to do that, and not because I’m deaf, but because I have to resolve to put my guilt behind me, to move forward, to go forward…with you.”

“I want that more than anything, which is why I almost let BBD’s offer go to waste. I think we are both finally figuring out how to be happy?”

“You make me happier than I could’ve ever imagined being, Waverly. You give me peace and love and…it sounds so corny…but I feel like I can do anything with you by my side.”

“You have me, Nicole Haught,” Waverly confirmed, kissing her shoulder before stretching her arms to pull up and over Nicole, moving to kiss her slow and deep, words between kisses, “today…tomorrow…wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever we do.”

“Whoever we are…” Nicole whispered against Waverly’s lips.

“We’re a pair, after all.”

* * *

Nicole walked into Waverly’s condo with a to-go bag, keys deposited in the tray, hollering “Hi Honey, I’m home!”

Waverly peeked out from door of the study and put a finger over her lips miming a shush to Nicole. “Sorry,” she mouthed silently as she moved towards the kitchen, pulling out the tacos, salsa and guacamole, opening the freezer for tequila to make margaritas. She turned to spy a pale, stunned Waverly as she set the glasses on the island. “Should I make yours a double? What’s wrong??”

“Celebratory drink,” Waverly said, as a smile broke across her face. “Contract will be at the San Francisco office tomorrow and I leave on Monday.”

Nicole nodded slowly and poured the tequila into the blender, but then stopped and walked over to Waverly, gathering her up in a hug, lifting her a few inches off the ground she held her so tightly. “I’m going to miss you so damn much. Congratulations, baby.”

* * *

Waverly and Nicole trudged through the airport as slowly as possible, but the time was running out and they both knew it was time for goodbyes. As they neared the security clearance entrance, Waverly pulled them aside under the tilted angle of the escalators for a modicum of privacy. She sat her bag down and then turned to Nicole, unable to look into her eyes, her hand running the length of the coat she wore from collar to waist. Waverly swallowed hard.

“So you’re going to stay at the condo and go up to the Homestead every few weeks to make sure things are okay?”

“I am. And I’m going to take Chrissy with me next month and get the jeep so I can sell the Subaru.”

“You don’t need it anymore. I like the idea of you driving my baby,” Waverly said as she fingered the soft leather lapel absently, her thumb brushing the warm cotton against Nicole’s sternum.

“Me too,” whispered Nicole, “I’ll take good care of her.”

“I trust you.”

“I know. I won’t let you down,” Nicole said reverently.

“And you’re going to let Nedley mentor you when the new semester starts and maybe see if he’s planning to retire, like he keeps threatening,” Waverly continued, her mental checklist ticking off each item for the hundredth time.

“I am going to make my intentions known every week and I’m going to talk to Senator Walters about working on her campaign in the spring.”

“Good experience.”

“Gotta start somewhere, Waves. Someone has to be the first…”

“It’s going to be you, Nicole.”

“It’s going to be us,” Nicole confirmed as she brushed her index finger under Waverly’s chin, tilting her head up until she had no choice but to look at Nicole, tears in both their eyes.

“You’ll call as soon as you land? I have the phone on flash notification. I won’t miss it.”

“As soon as I land.”

“And before you go out in the field?” Nicole stuttered slightly, anxiety threading through the question.

“Before I go and as soon as I’m unrestricted, I’ll let you know I’m safe and sound. We’ll FaceTime. Technology is fantastic,” Waverly uttered with a watery laugh.

“Yeah…” was all Nicole could get out. Now it was real. Waverly was leaving her for who knew how long, until she got the biggest bad in North America and it was going to be hard, but her girl deserved this. She leaned down and pressed a possessive kiss to Waverly’s lips, then hugged her so tightly neither of them could breathe, releasing her abruptly. “You have to go or you’re going to miss your flight, Waves.”

Waverly nodded and pushed the carry-on bag up her shoulder and marched defiantly towards the security line. She waited till the last moment before releasing Nicole’s hand, a kiss to her cheek and a whispered “Love you”.

Nicole backed away, looking up at the ceiling to try and keep some of the tears in her eyes, she guessed stupidly. But suddenly Waverly was in front of her again, jumping into her arms, wrapping her hands around Nicole’s neck, kissing her fully and completely, _magnificently_ , Nicole marveled to herself. She lifted Waverly off the floor and instinctually legs wrapped around her hips, their bodies pressed tightly together.

Waverly kissed Nicole like it was the first and last time, a kiss good enough to last a while, she prayed. And when she finally had to stop because the forces of nature required her to actually breathe, she continued to pepper kisses to the corners of Nicole’s mouth, against her dimple, anywhere she could leave a trace. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” echoing against her creamy skin, blushing redder with each declaration and warm brush of Waverly’s lips.

* * *

**_Eight Months Later_ **

Waverly stood on the curb by the pickup/drop-off at SFO’s international terminal. She couldn’t wait to get back to the condo and surprise Nic by arriving a day early from the end of their latest assignment. She pulled out her phone with the intention of requesting an Uber when a red jeep pulled up in front of her, window rolling down at the approach. She had to assume Wynonna had tipped Nicole off, which was more than fine; she couldn’t wait to see her best baby.

“Were you about to request a pickup?” Nicole asked coolly behind her Ray-Bans, in the same blue shirt she’d worn for their first ‘date’, her dimple popping from the radiant smile on her face.

“Yes!…Let me just…” Waverly made a play at the app.

Nicole gamely looked down at her phone, and mocked a confirmation. “There we are!”

In the time that Waverly took hold of her suitcase, Nic had rounded the Jeep and opened the passenger door. Waverly continued to play along, gliding inside and fastening her seatbelt as Nicole loaded her suitcase in the back. The restraint they were both showing in not mauling each other after being apart for so very long was astounding.

“I see you’re headed towards Berkeley, I’ll have you home in a jiffy,” Nicole said as she slid out of their role-play just a bit, taking Waverly’s hand in her own as she pulled away from the curb.

“Do you have a shortcut?” winked Waverly

“I don’t need one anymore. We’ve got all the time in the world to get where we’re going.”

 

     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note: Here is the information on bone conduction hearing & it is cool as hell:
> 
> https://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/august/ear-bone-conduction-080513.html
> 
> Thank you all for reading, for indulging my soft gay heart so often on this journey. I'm a bit in shock that we've reached the end, but I wanted to tell a concise story about falling in love despite both physical & emotional obstacles. I hope if you've taken something from this, it is that we all have a greater capacity within ourselves to love and trust that we ever imagine possible.
> 
> Lucky’s note: So that’s the end, almost…what did you think? Listen, my name is listed as co-author on this fic but it was Climb who took the concept and wrote what is, in my opinion, a really beautiful love story. If any chapter sums up Nicole’s willingness to support Waverly in whatever she wants in that beautiful heart of hers, this is the one. So, I’m pretty sure we get an epilogue, lovely readers, but I hope you enjoyed the world we built. Thanks all. @LuckyWantsTo


	11. still caught up in the moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> { epilogue }

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was extremely hard to narrow down the moments I wanted to ensure you all knew about Waverly & Nicole in their future. I tried to stay focused on what I had said last week, that I wanted to tell a concise story about falling in love despite both physical & emotional obstacles. I really hope that we’ve done that. Months ago I had an epiphany and I knew immediately how I wanted to end this...how I wanted you all to know the most important takeaway. The note I wrote in that moment says:
> 
> "Fate meant for them to be new and different people who had to rely on each other, trust each other, die if they had to live without each other. Life had to take away what wasn’t needed so that all they could hear was each other’s heartbeat when it mattered most. "
> 
> ~ climb

**2013.**

Nicole was going to be late. She had to make this flight down to Alabama or she was going to curse herself for the entirety of the training at Hazardous Device School. She looked down at her phone to see how quickly an Uber could pick her up to get to the airport.  _Why did you think it was a good idea to leave from the precinct? They’re not even going to know about the shortcut…_ she chastised herself.

Waverly should have never told Chrissy she’d pick her up here. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been at a police precinct, and it was wasting time to wander these halls in search of Sergeant Nedley’s office. She pulled out her phone and began to text Chrissy to just come out when she was done because this was  _ridiculous_.

Turning the corner, unaware, Waverly and Nicole collided in the hall. They had run smack into each other in their separate distractions. Nicole fell backwards, Waverly landing on top of her. The brunette finally braced herself on her hands, bracketing Nicole’s shoulders, their bodies a hair’s breadth apart, the blood rushing from their hearts, up over their ears, and back down through their body, as if it were the only sound left in the world.

Nicole smirked when she felt Waverly’s knee slide up her thigh in an effort to gain balance after the fall. Waverly blushed when she felt the seam of Nicole’s pants against her knee, but smiled awkwardly. “Hey, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No, I’m sorry,” husked Nicole, “I somehow didn’t hear you coming down the hall despite those heels…”

“And I obviously didn’t see you despite the halo of fluorescent orange from those hideous bags…”

“I don’t have anyone to tell me when things are in bad taste,” sighed Nicole.

“Maybe you should go out and meet new people,” suggested Waverly.

“Like work for Uber or something?”

“Well if this uniform is any indication, I’d say your future is already set.”

With that Waverly pushed up off of Nicole and gathered her belongings, her hand brushing Nicole’s when she handed back the phone she had dropped in the tumble. Nicole herself was rendered speechless at the sight of Waverly standing above her. Finally as Waverly turned to walk away and out of her life, she found her voice again.

“I don’t believe in that…”

“What?” Waverly turned at the last moment.

“The future isn’t set in stone.”

“It isn’t?”

“Anything could happen tomorrow and then where would we all be?”

“Well, we’d be different people, I suppose…”

“Maybe we’ll meet again if that ever happens.”

And with that, they both smiled a bit longingly at each other and went on with their perfect lives and careers and relationships until one day…

 

BOOM.

* * *

  **2018.**

 _“I see you’re headed towards Berkeley, I’ll have you home in a jiffy,” Nicole said as she slid out of their role-play just a bit, taking Waverly’s hand in her own as she pulled away from the curb._  
  
_“Do you have a shortcut?” winked Waverly_  
_  
“I don’t need one anymore. We’ve got all the time in the world to get where we’re going.”_

* * *

**3 years later.**

Wynonna knocked quietly on the bedroom door before opening it slowly, “Haught, can I come in?”

Nicole stood in front of the dresser, unsuccessfully trying to pin a white rose to her suit, frustration etching its way across her forehead. “Help me?!” she begged.

Wynonna pushed the door open then and swiftly crossed the room, taking the rose and pin from Nicole’s hands. “You’re shaking. Are you nervous? You shouldn’t be nervous.”

“I’m nervous about remembering my vows.”

“Waverly told me you two were doing mostly traditional, with just a bit of a personal touch to them, so what’s there to remember?”

“I don’t know...all of it? You know the second I see your sister in her wedding dress, I’m going to forget everything,” countered Nicole.

“No you won’t. It’s too important to Waverly. You’ve probably rehearsed it a dozen times,” Wynonna looked to Nicole for confirmation and verified, “Oh much more than that. See, you’re going to be fine.”

“Are we ready, Wy? Are we ready to get married?”

“Dude, you’ve been married to Waverly since the day you met her. This is just to make it official. It also makes you seem like a more sound choice for city council,” Wynonna implied.

Nicole just rolled her eyes as Wynonna finished pinning the rose and smoothed down the lapels of the suit. “Top shelf, Haught. You look top shelf…”

“I’m going to be everything she needs and wants,” Nicole declared as if she knew what Wynonna was going to ask.

“And buy her the house she wants in the suburbs?”

“I put in the offer last week. It’s where we’re celebrating our honeymoon, though she doesn’t know it yet,” Nicole nodded in confirmation.

“And you’ll get a dog and have some kids when she’s ready?”

“We're going to the animal shelter as soon as we feel like we can handle that responsibility.”

“And someday, the kids too?"

Nicole tensed and swallowed hard before answering. “Actually, we’re probably not going to have kids. But you’re going to give us a great opportunity to be amazing aunts,” she said, reaching out to touch Wynonna’s ever-increasing midsection, running her hand smoothly over the baby bump. Waverly was over the moon about the unexpected bundle of joy and Wynonna had begrudgingly accepted her impending motherhood.

“I will try and understand, but I don’t know why this isn’t one of those things you can’t be first at. People in all kinds of circumstances have babies every day. Look at me! Besides, Waverly would be such a great mother...you would too…” Wynonna said, tears in her eyes.

“Waverly would be the best, you’re right...And we’ve talked about it a lot over this last year and our concerns exceed our desire to have a baby. We would be constantly overwhelmed with worry for the smallest thing that might happen. It might take all the joy away from being parents. We’re exceptionally skilled at handling our disabilities, but having a newborn is entirely different than anything we’ve considered dealing with before. It doesn’t mean there won’t be children in our home someday...”

“Chin up, Earp,” Nicole commanded, “but this one better be a girl or Waverly is going to be pissed. You should see the outfits she’s already buying her.”

“Yeah, Babygirl with my baby girl,” Wynonna choked out before pulling Nicole into a tight hug. “Let’s get you two married so I don’t have to explain different last names to this kiddo.”

“Oh so you’re taking Doc’s name now?”

Wynonna pinched Nicole hard, “You shut your mouth…”

* * *

 Waverly stood at the top of the ridge and looked down on their friends and family, all gathered on wooden benches under the archway onto the Homestead. Her breath caught in her throat. She was marrying Nicole Haught today. Sometimes she thought it would never happen. They had spent the better part of two years apart as she took down Bulshar’s cartel piece by piece, travelling all over the world, until finally the last apprehension in Calgary, back where they had started right after she took the job. Now it was just reports and testifying at numerous trials until the next big task force was created.

It would be so nice to spend some time just living with Nicole, learning how to share their own space, even if it was still at her tiny condo for the time being. She had consoled herself with the fact that they didn’t need anything more than that, not until they got a dog at least. But she had fallen in love with the house they’d seen last month while tooling through the suburbs on a Sunday afternoon drive. It was just there, in the middle of a meadow, alone with it’s ‘For Sale’ sign as they came up over a ridge in the Jeep. They had stopped to look and wandered over the property for a good half hour before she’d called the realtor. It was a bit out of their price range, inconvenient for someone who couldn’t drive to say the least, but it was something she could bookmark as an idea of what to plan for in their future. Today Waverly took Doc’s hand and began to walk down to marry Nicole.

As she came to stand by the benches, Nicole waiting for her at the end of the aisle, she caught her breath. Locking eyes with her Love, everyone else faded away and it just suddenly seemed to be the two of them, not even an symptom of her tunnel vision, she determined. Nicole smiled warmly, welcoming Waverly towards her, and instinctually, Waverly took Doc’s arm as she was led to the front and given to Nicole’s embrace, warm hands wrapping around Waverly as she kissed her cheek and they turned to the judge.

“Friends, family, we are gathered here today to witness the union of Waverly and Nicole…” and as the voice faded out, Nicole knew it wasn’t her lack of hearing, it was the way she was enraptured with Waverly, who stood beside her, glowing, radiant as this spring day they had set for the start of their marriage.

Nicole had proposed on a Monday, in the park where they had first kissed, where they had both first faced their truths, and she had admitted then that it wasn’t required, but she just wanted to call Waverly her wife and know that everyone would be aware they were bound to each other as their hearts had been since the moment they met, maybe before, definitely  **always**  and  _forever_. Waverly had said yes before she could even finish the proposal.

Waverly had meticulously planned the wedding, a small and private affair for the most part. Everything had come together seamlessly, truth be told, and had she resigned herself to letting everyone choose their own wardrobe due to Wynonna’s pregnancy, there wouldn’t have been any deviance from the original concept. She had only tasked Nicole with the honeymoon, and she was pretty excited to see where they were going when they left the Homestead. But now Nicole stood in front of her, thumb rubbing her knuckles as they began their vows, and she knew she would never be able to put into words what their marriage would mean to her, nor the future in store for them.

“Waverly, please offer your vow to Nicole.” spoke the judge.

“Nicole, I vow to honor and cherish you as my wife; to give our marriage comfort, devotion and reverence in despair and joy. I will be your strength in this life together, and always put the sound of your heart above the fray of the world. I love you and I trust your love for me always.”

“Nicole, please offer your vow to Waverly.” the judge continued.

“Waverly, I vow to honor and cherish you as my wife; to give our marriage comfort, devotion and reverence in despair and joy. I will be your strength in this life together, and always put the sound of your heart above the fray of the world. I love you and I trust your love for me always.”

Wynonna leaned over to Doc, “I don’t know why they were so worried about forgetting those vows, even I could’ve repeated that back at this point,” she quipped.

* * *

Hours later, Waverly & Nicole swayed on the makeshift dance floor, their foreheads against each other, bodies resting close as exhaustion crept in from the day’s events. James Bay’s “Wild Love” poured grainy from the speakers, the only lights remaining were the dim lanterns hanging from the roof of the barn.

“We got  **_married_ ** ,” whispered Waverly, as  her hand trailed up Nicole’s bare arm, suit jacket long discarded, until she twisted her fingers in the curled hair at the nape of her neck, the cool metal of her wedding ring sending a shiver down Nicole’s spine.

“We got  **_married_ ** ,” confirmed Nicole, as she pulled Waverly tightly against her, her mouth moving to kiss the pulse point on her neck, nuzzling against her with closed eyes and warm heart.

Waverly pulled away slightly a moment later, just so she could focus on Nicole’s face and the joy that resided there. “It looks good on you.”

“It looks good on you too, Mrs. Haught.”

“Well, we are a pair. It’s just official now,” Waverly confirmed as she kissed her wife, still caught up in the moment. 

* * *

  **15 years later.**

Charlie Haught walked out onto the stage at the Grand Hyatt to thunderous applause. The crowd littered the ballroom with “HAUGHT FOR GOVERNOR” posters, pins and caps. Balloons in every hue of blue were floating along the sides and anchored to the tables. The crowd chanted low until he arrived at the microphone.

“Twenty years ago, my mom had a dream. A dream that most jaded politicians would have said she could never achieve. The former senator from California would dare to argue that nothing is unachievable with the right people behind her. And you are those people!”

The crowd went wild as Charlie’s speech continued. Backstage, Nicole was flustered with nervous energy. She pressed down the front of her suit with sweaty palms until Waverly turned from in front of her and put a gentle hand over her own. “You look very handsome in this suit.”

“My wife has great taste,” Nicole smirked despite her anxiety. She calmed under Waverly’s touch immediately.

“Do you have your speech ready?” Waverly asked patiently.

“I do. Are you going to go stand in front so I can see you just like every time before?”

“I am, baby,” Waverly said as she kissed Nicole’s dimple, turned, and marched triumphantly to take her place front and center of the stage.

Nicole collected herself, eyes closed, the sound muted more by focus than her deafness. She had made it, more than achieving her dream. She had been a senator for eight years, most of the time they had raised Charlie, and now she was going to be home, in the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento while he was going off to Harvard. The irony, she thought as she shook her head.  _But he’ll be home for Christmas_  and that’s what mattered most.

Her attention returned to the present just as he was wrapping up his introduction and she beamed with pride at how eloquently he spoke of her, Waverly, and their life, how far they all had come. She took a few strides across the stage and suddenly she was in the bright, hot lights of the camera for her acceptance speech.

“Good evening. I come to you tonight a proud Californian. Born and raised in this great state, dedicating my life to service, first as a police officer, then as an educator, and most recently as your senior senator, I am proud to call this my home. And I am proud tonight, to become your newly elected governor!”

The frenzy escalated briefly and as she waited for it to settle, she used the pause to locate Waverly. Her beautiful wife stood humbly in front of the throngs of supporters, hair starting to gray ever so slightly, just as Nicole’s had...but they had earned every strand. Their life flashing before her very eyes, through the white glare of the spotlights. The electronics causing her hearing aid to ring, she subtly touched her ear to lower the volume, content to focus solely on Waverly as she continued.

“This has not been an overnight success as many of you know. I became an officer and was injured in the line of duty in my twenties. I fought depression and substance abuse, and my future looked desolate. But then I met my wife, Waverly,” Nicole said as she directed all the attention to the single most important person in the room, because it was certainly not the governor-elect. “And Waverly taught me that we have to trust that life is going to reward the hard work, the effort we put into it, the LOVE that we show it. That life is like a wonderful marriage - you go through it together by listening to each other’s hearts - that we all need support and encouragement to be the best version of ourselves. Sometimes that means you make sacrifices and we’ve made a few,” Nicole’s eyes met Waverly’s, both shining through tears of victory, “and it has been worth it all.”

As if their lives were a movie, countless scenes of the last twenty years together flashed before Nicole’s eyes. She had started as an instructor and then taken over as Commander at the Academy when Nedley retired. She worked on two of Senator Walter’s campaigns before she was endorsed to take the seat in the next year’s election, all the while serving on city council in Berkeley. She had been a successful constituent for her state and her voting record was a clear indicator that California’s new governor was going to encourage new ideas and community involvement to make overwhelming changes for the better.

Meanwhile, Waverly had climbed the ladder with the U.S. Marshals. After being a researcher almost five years with BBD, she took a position at the U.S. Marshals state office as a Chief Inspector and quickly rose in ranks. She moved into Senior Inspector for The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Division with the Department of Justice and was rumored to be on the shortlist of candidates for Deputy Director when the position next became available in Arlington.

They had done all of this after taking in Charlie when he was about eight. Waverly had brought him home on Christmas Eve after breaking up a human trafficking ring and Nicole was smitten. They had thought he was mute from the unimaginable trauma he had witnessed, but Alice slowly got him to open up. The couple never knew they could be so happy and exhausted at the same time. They adopted him the following year.

And now, taking his place beside Waverly, she couldn’t believe they had been so courageous in raising him. It was terrifying and beyond rewarding and she was so proud to send her son to college, to be a lawyer: “I want to be their voice, mama, just like you and mom always have been”, he told her when he got into Harvard this past spring.

How had it passed so quickly? So vibrantly, so full of love and laughter and LIFE. How had she assumed when she had gotten hurt and Ben had died that there was no goodness left for her? How could she know she was just waiting for Waverly to come into her life? Waverly who had shown her how to love and how to live and how to have everything she had ever dreamed of… **_more_ **.

Waverly would say that Nicole eventually solved the problem, as she repeated often in their early years of marriage with each new obstacle set before them. She finally saw the truth of the events that had pulled them together. Nicole had come to understand that sometimes things happen for a reason, and that even though they both had suffered devastating losses individually, together they were made whole. Together they had trust and strength to go after their dreams, to listen to the sound of their hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> climb's note: Lucky & I hadn't known each other very long when I messaged her on a random Monday and told her I had an idea about Nicole being an Uber driver...but with a million complications. She was game and told me to make an outline (neither of us work from outlines, so that went over well) but we brainstormed like mad over the next couple of weeks and the basis of the story was there. Lucky took a huge chance on me. This would have never happened without her and I adore what LOH became under her guidance. Most importantly, I am so very grateful for the wonderful friends and cohorts we've become. Thank you, dear readers, for joining us on this adventure. I could not have asked for a better experience than writing for this fandom. I do plan to eventually make this a series with occasional oneshots, and I hope we'll revisit Waverly & Nicole for many years to come. I hope you will always want to join us. 
> 
> Lucky’s note: And that is all! I don’t know what I can say here to you, readers, that I haven’t said already about this story. Climb and I joke and call this fic our wife, and I love her very much. And more than that, I’ve really loved the chance to create a fic with someone else that I met through this fandom as a stranger, and now have a very good friend! So only good things have come to me through this process, and happily the best things have come to Waverly and Nicole. Climb promises one shots and therefore you shall have them. Until then, thank you all for joining us on this ride and stay tuned for our next endeavor(s). @LuckyWantsTo


End file.
